Thread 14: 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 13 Observer items currently available on their online 'The real Salt Path' page: The real Salt Path | The Observer

3 more from The Observer:

‘Hope is extinguished’: CBD patients respond to Salt Path...

The real Salt Path | The Observer (The Slow Newscast)

‘We thought: it can’t be the Salt Path couple – they’d ha...

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?

Thread 13: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5386458-thread-13-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 16 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 thirteen 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.

Are we all becoming Hyperglycaemic from all the fudge?
Have shares in Cadbury's gone up?
Can we remain cheerful in the face of such shameless glumwashing?
Will I need to fill up with much petrol this thread for the drive-by scoldings?
Will our Chloe H get exclusive interviews with the disgruntled peregrine, tortoise and Hollywood rabbits?
What has our Simon A got to say about this, preferably in verse?

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

The Daily Mail have just released an article giving details and pictures of the Cornish estate where they are now living. They have not given the name.

Revealed: The luxurious 190-acre Cornish estate where The Salt Path author Raynor Winn and her husband have taken refuge from furore over memoir's 'fabrications' | Daily Mail Online

That's it. I listened to it live yesterday morning. Every week they have a 10-15 minute segment where three guests briefly discuss 2-3 articles they have each found in the Sunday papers. Discussion of the Observer article was a very small part of the programme & very superficial.

She has repeatedly described it as a 'routine appointment' in interviews, but that is not how she describes it in TSP:

We were in a consultant’s room in a hospital in Liverpool. Finally, we would have the results of years of medical procrastination and we’d know the cause of Moth’s shoulder pain. After a life of physical work he’d been told by one doctor: ‘Pain is normal, you should expect to suffer when you raise your arms and stumble a bit when you walk.’ Others had raised questions about a slight tremor in his hand and numbness in his face. But this doctor was the top dog, head of his field, the real deal. He was going to tell us that it was ligament damage or something similar and how it could be fixed; that it had happened when Moth fell through the barn roof years ago – maybe there’d been a hairline fracture. He was certainly going to tell us how it could be put right. He would sit authoritatively behind his desk and tell us this. Without a doubt.
We’d barely spoken during the long drive to Liverpool, each of us in our own mire of shock and exhaustion. The days since the court case were a blur of packing boxes and bonfires, endless fraught phone calls and despair. The realization had dawned that we had nowhere to go. The worst thing that could possibly happen had happened. This seven-hour round trip was something we didn’t need. Every hour was precious, every hour to finish packing, every hour to still be held safe within those walls.

I wondered on why the accounts differ so much, and I think it depends on the type of presentation:
In a short interview statement, the emotional impact of the diagnosis is more visceral when it comes completely out of the blue, therefore the 'routine appointment'.

But in the book version, it ties in with the backstory of years of pain, unexplained symptoms and clueless/unempathic doctors. And then they meet the top dog, real deal - the diagnosis is given by the highest authority, it is as sure as it can be.
It also explains why they go to the doctor at all - if they have only a few days for packing and finding new accomodation, wouldn't they just postpone a 'routine appointment'? It has to be something really important for them to be undertaking it at the time.

Interesting that she publicly contradicts her own writing like that, but somehow no interviewer has ever called her out for it.

For me it's that 'unflinchingly honest' that does it. IF SW had come out and admitted the embezzlement (with sufficient breast beating - the public loves a rogue after all just look at some of the MPs who've gone on to greater things after some really quite nasty actions), and said that the story was a largely fictionalised account of a series of walks that they had actually done over the years; that she'd never intended the walk to be held up as an exemplar of what to do in the event of TWs illness - whatever it might be, and the whole thing should be treated as fiction, she's sorry that so many believed it to be true...

Then I wouldn't feel so bad about it. It's that 'unflinchingly honest' label that's really proving the big cloud under which they labour.

Bill Bryson got away with so much of A Walk In The Woods because it was funny. A purely factual account of a walk by two men who argued most of the way, even written by a big seller, would be tedious. Bill Bryson's humour is is selling point, not his truthfulness.

This looks a lot like their earlier article but with added photos of the estate - which does indeed look luxurious, like a royal residence. However, it also refers to 'Seamus Heaney's classic novel, Beowulf' 😬 the Mail may not have had any English literature grads looking at this one..

You have to love the DM’s quality journalism. ‘Séamus Heaney’s classic novel Beowulf.’

Though that house has several cottages close up to it and looks like it’s on a working farm — I would have thought they’d go for somewhere more isolated? Though from what the DM says local people, they’ve been living there for years, so presumably not specifically chosen for its seclusion?

Yes, I found the segment and gave my slightly salty opinion on those two individuals a bit later in the thread from the message you just responded too. See if you agree...

Yes, I don't think Seamus H would have described it thus, either. Also, poem, you sub editorless plonks.

I can't imagine that pile is at all cheap to rent and they've been there 2 years? In their position I would have invested in buying, preferably for cash, a more modest property that I would own outright but then I'm not a free nature spirit untrammeled by possessions and untroubled by a need for security.

I know that area!
Its almost like they wanted somewhere extremely hidden away.

I suppose it’s quite possible they have bought property in cash since becoming wealthy. Just something ordinary so they have UK property as an asset, while continuing to live the lifestyle they think befits them, on a large secluded country estate.

Would they have enough as money in instalments I believe?

Not sure why the Mail hasn’t named the property. It’s fairly common knowledge round here!

Maybe they can go on Strictly in autumn.

Royalties are usually paid six-monthly by the bigger publishers. Mine pays monthly, thank heavens, because receiving a large sum every now and then plays hell with the budgeting. And I suspect that the next couple of royalty payments might come as a shock to the Walkers, as you don't know how much you are getting until your statement comes in. Six months, in arrears, which means that their next statement will probably be healthy and good, but the one after that might have plummeted. So unless they are being canny and they've put away a lot of their earnings, we might find that they have to do another flit in a year or so.

They do seem very keen on living on the money they have there and then, hence the big estate currently. But if the earnings drop, they often drop like a stone which can be hard if you've got used to a certain standard of living. And they will be publishing poison until this all blows over, so more books and another contract might well not be forthcoming. So I hope, for their sakes, that they've put away a decent amount to live off for the rest of their lives, although I rather suspect that they haven't.

@Peladon a stint on Strictly would demonstrate the miraculous healing ability of dance!

OK, it is not and never will be a "cheap" area but a quick Rightmove search for Fowey +5 miles reveals some lovely properties (drooling) in the £600K ish range. I can't imagine given what even a conservative estimate of their royalties will have been it would have taken long to put enough together to buy something like that, especially when they were living inexpensively on Bill Cole's cider farm for a while.

Maybe they do own somewhere and have it in reserve, but renting that enormous house still makes little sense to me. It must be 1000's a month.

Their couple's choice could tell their unflinchingly true miracle story, with other dancers portraying some of the nasty people who strayed into their path.

Here is an archive link for those who prefer a faster loading web page.

archive.ph/8s4mV

I don't know how to quote anybody, I'm sorry, I have been thinking about what some people were speculating about yesterday evening. It was noted that a nephew had posted some negative comments about the Winn's which have since been removed.
People were wondering why no other relatives or friends have come forward with stories to tell,
I wonder if they are being given hush money, perhaps a payment and they sign a non disclosure clause.
Also, has anybody contacted trading standards? I had a little look at online information, it seemed to say that publishers can be held accountable for false advertising, I might have got this wrong, maybe someone here has knowledge of this.

Thanks @Vroomfondleswaistcoat , really interesting to know how royalties etc work. I also doubt they will have been thrifty.

Or Tim would succumb to the ‘Curse of Strictly’, start a torrid affair with his dance partner, the Raymoth duo would splinter and they would both sell bitter kiss and tell stories to the papers?

Well it could make sense: a) they couldn't afford to buy it at £10m b) if they have £2mn in the bank @4% they are getting income of £80k pa. Let's say they are spending £3k pcm on rent (£36k pa) they are still not touching their capital and enjoying the lifestyle while the owner is responsible for the upkeep of the house. And of course they can move out and go elsewhere, should circumstances dictate....

Perfect @Peladon!

The archive link doesn't show the comments and there appear to be over 100. Does anyone have access to the original and can say if they are for or against in general?