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.

@PullTheBricksDown
The 2015 doctor's letter notes 'an abnormal posturing of the left hemi-body as he walks' - is this the lean to one side we've noticed in photos?
There is no such lean. Or rather, it depends very much on the situation and the other people present.

It’s clear TW has some form of illness. CBS or some form of related condition has been mentioned, if not firmly diagnosed, from the medical letters published in SW’s statement, even if the timeline was massaged in TSP, and whatever he has is progressing atypically. Whereas Bella Gibson was in perfect good health through her scam.

My legs often feel a bit stiff if I’ve done a long coastal walk. It’s the hills. Saying your legs feel a bit stiff while walking the SWCP is a very normal thing to say and doesn’t denote much imo. Not in isolation anyway

I don’t think it’s clear at all that he is ill. I haven’t seen any convincing evidence for that.

Me too.

Agree!

I'm just updating the timeline on my laptop, if anyone has anything further to add - I've missed quite a bit of this thread, but am now just updating with the date the Australians met the Walkers in 2015.

https://cornishstory.com/2023/11/18/mapping-methodism-fowey-wesleyan-chapel/
I think the flat in Pelruan is to the left of this former Chapel.

The medical letters strongly suggest it.

Strongly suggesting something is not clear evidence.

I’m sorry if I come across as rude or insensitive - I absolutely don’t intend to!

My point is that if RW has repeatedly said in her books that TW has been diagnosed with terminal CBD and has very little time left to live, and made money off these books, I think a lot more than just ‘strong suggestion’ is needed as proof of a diagnosis.

Different chapel. This is Fowey not Polruan.

So if you think that diagnosis of 2015 massaged to fit 2013 walk is ok ( unless I've misunderstood) then why are we all here 14 threads on?

Well, we're fairly sceptical by now that there was either a clear cut diagnosis, or a definite non-fragmented walk, in 2013 or 2015. Welcome to the upside down, folks! Roll on thread 14.

The symptoms TW describes in the letters strongly suggest it, plus about 3 objective signs, which could have different interpretations and causes if TW's stated symptoms are removed from the equation. Can we believe his stated symptoms? Whether the letters strongly suggest he is ill or not hinges on this, I think.

Also agree.

I think that whatever Tim and Sally have told consultants strongly suggest something is wrong, whether there actually is or not (other than age related wear and tear) is open to debate in my opinion.

Over the course of our discussions more and more has come out about them truly being "pathological liars" (never were truer words spoken by their nephew!), so why should we believe what they've told medical professionals when pretty much everything else is bollocks.

And straying back to another subject on this thread - the Parsons. It now seems that Sally had been busy reading their blog back in the day to get ideas for what to write about her and Tim's supposed walk!

Nothing is sacred, so I don't think we can necessarily believe them about Tim's health.

Where have I suggested it’s ‘ok’? I think it’s the most likely explanation, yes, rather than the alternative, someone presenting over a period of years at various pain clinics, neurologists, cardiologists etc, with a series of completely invented symptoms in order to provide some retrospective justification for claims made by his spouse’s bestselling memoir that he suffered from an obscure but terminal condition.

Tempting as it was to go on the run walk with our cat on a lead, fudge and cider for rations and an old dressing gown to wild camp under, here instead is Thread 14:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5388981-thread-14-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

Many thanks to our Correspondent with Portfolio for Timeline and References @FurryHappyKittens who has added updates to the start of the new thread.

Please fill up this thread before arguing furiously with the ferryman and his dog about the extortionate cost of the choppy journey over perilous sandbanks to Thread 14.

Presumptuous drive-by scolder that I am, please will someone repost the above link very near to the end of this thread as is usual. Many thanks.

I think it's feasible they decided that if something was up with Tim, it must be something obscure and unfathomable.

Because everyone knows they're different and special.

Run of the mill symptoms for a run of the mill condition would not be for them.

2011 tests were all negative, so it could have been something very dull that was troubling him. If anything.

Channel 4 did show a documentary called "Young Swingers" in 2016. Apparently. So the Parsons' account sounds correct (as well as entertaining).

But Tim did not diagnose itself, that was done by a doctor who was so puzzled by a range of symptoms that didn't really seem to fit anywhere, that s/he came to the conclusion that "his condition most closely resembles the corticobasal syndrome" - if we can call this a diagnosis at all.

But CBD is a very rare condition, and the diagnostic criteria were only agreed upon in 2013, so the doctor who made that call would most likely not even have learned them in Medschool.
Or, as CH recently put it: "doctors can be confused by a condition that is so rare they don't often come across it."

I don't know how many people spend 20 years with mysterious symptoms that no doctor can properly diagnose. If someone like that is also known to be connected to an enterprise of untruth-telling, that raises interesting questions.

I don't know how many people spend 20 years with mysterious symptoms that no doctor can properly diagnose. If someone like that is also known to be connected to an enterprise of untruth-telling, that raises interesting questions.

Quite!

"an enterprise of untruth-telling" now seems to be an understatement (despite Penguin continuing to promote TSP on the basis of "unflinching honesty")..

Agree and this fits with their extreme reactions to Moth's good days - hallelujah, he's cured! - and bad days - can't go on any longer! This is it, the end is nigh! - when walking.

They also don't write about having rest days, which is a thing with all the other accounts of walking the SWCP that I've read any of. I know they were walking slowly, but rather than keeping moving but only covering 3 or 4 miles in a day, I wonder if more days of complete rest would have helped chronic conditions or mechanical / muscular / limb problems.

I've read more of the blog and I'm not convinced there's anything there that Raymoth have lifted or been inspired by. Possibly the swingers story could have been the seed for the Grant story but it's a stretch and not much else is apparent that I can see. The tortoise could just be coincidence.

Incidentally, The Mal guy looks like a relative of Peter Stringfellow crossed with Frank Zappa, maybe with a bit of Ali G or Bono. Surely that would be ripe material for fabricating a character. Grant on the other hand is a tall, gaunt man with a bald head.

They do have some rest days. Off my head, there's the time Tim has pregabalin withdrawals and i think there's a time when Ray is ill, and another when they stay in St Ives for two nights.