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.

Ha ha ha! Never mind a book, perhaps I could find myself a record producer!

I didn’t think it meant ‘regrowing’ of brain, I just thought it might mean no shrinkage seen. And I thought the dat scan was just showing bright lights (or not), rather than brain mass shrinking or otherwise..? I think we need one of the medical correspondents on the case..!!

Lightly Salted Bagpipes?
Bagpiping to the Corncrakes?

With tie-in album, obviously.

To me, "the sizeable brain mass shown on your recent MRI scan" seems like a very unlikely way of saying 'your brain volume looks normal, no signs of shrinkage' - especially since 'sizeable' doesn't usually mean 'of normal size', but rather 'remarkably large'.
And the Datscan is a different test for dopaminergic activity using a radioactive tracer that shows up as lights on a screen.

Pedantic/minor inconsistency alert...they all count right?

In TSP when Moth starts experiencing pregabalin withdrawals they set up camp behind a hedge at Peppercomb beach and Raynor writes that the phone has no battery by 4 a.m.

There was no phone reception and by four o’clock the battery had died in the cold. To get help I’d have to leave him there and try to find a house. I didn’t want to leave him. I switched the torch on, recklessly wasting the batteries.

They stay in this same spot for two further days and nights. On the morning of the third day, Raynor finds a driftwood "shack".

On the sharp grass at the top of the rocks, amongst the pink thrift, was a rough shelter made from bits of wood and washed up plastic. Someone had put benches inside and hung seaweed around...

By some miracle the phone must have regained charge because they took a photo of Moth inside this shack - it's on IG and I think in some media articles. I've never read anything about them taking photos on anything other than the phone they had.

The end.

I do so wish someone with a healthy dose of scepticism had sat down with Raymoth when all this began, by which I mean 2018 when the first book was published, and asked a few straightforward questions.

For example, we're told SalRay wrote the book for TimMoth because he was forgetting things and she wanted to remind him of the walk. I believe there's also mention somewhere of him being unable to read at some point. Why then, would SalRay sit down and write a wordy book full of metaphors and flowery prose... with no pictures?! A far better idea would be to compile a photobook, with short 1-2 line descriptions to prompt the memory. So many things make no sense until it becomes apparent that most of it isn't what it seemed.

I would be surprised if there was not a diagnosis of some kind before 2015. Moth had been having in depth neurological tests since 2011. It appears that Parkinson’s had been ruled out by 2015. CBD is an atypical Parkinsonism. I think it is likely the neurologist will have tried Levodopa to rule out Parkinson’s before arriving at a diagnosis of CBD (Parkinson’s responds to the drug, CBD doesn’t). If there were a diagnosis before 2015, as I have said before, I doubt it was of indolent CBD because it would have been too soon to know that the disease was slow moving and I’m pretty sure no one was ever diagnosed with that prior to Moth!

Remember the struggles that people with CFS/ME went through to be given actual diagnosis and taken seriously? Because there was nothing to be seen on scans?

We know that many forms of chronic pain, like low back pain, have no visible signs (and some people with visible signs have no symptoms).

I’m thinking that there is no dx for Moth before 2015 because EITHER he has no visible signs of disease, BUT he has real and genuine symptoms; OR he is making up symptoms as he goes along, and that is why the experts are flummoxed.

Please note, there are plenty of invisible ailments and (as someone who feels the results of the mind-body connection on a daily basis) I am absolutely not here to throw shade at anyone misfortunate enough to be suffering from a chronic condition, much less one with no visible signs. But as said above, there are legitimate questions here about TW/MW specific presentation and dis-ease/disease.

One of the earlier interviews in 2018 has Raynor saying she originally wrote 40 pages for Moth. I'm guessing this has become skewed over time and that these original 40 pages bear little resemblance to TSP, or even the Lightly Salted Blackberries manuscript. Maybe it was more like a 40 page diary - that's if such a thing was ever written - which formed the vague basis of the idea, without all the fabrications and such. Who knows, maybe that was unflinchingly honest.

Also, phone batteries don't die 'in the cold' or not in my experience at any rate. They die when the charge runs out. Although can imagine RW saying it stopped working in the cold and that's why she could then take the photo of the driftwood hut. I'm doing this 😑 yet again at the copy editors though.

Edit to add: this was meant to quote @AldoGordo above. #MistakesWereMade

Said photo.

Cold conditions are known reduce battery charge (unless its a myth). I often keep my phone in my sleeping bag when I'm camping to help it keep charge longer. That's how I interpreted TSP here.

I can attest to this. I’ve done lots of early morning winter walks with my phone or camera batteries running down fast.
(Loathe as I am to challenge a potential discrepancy)

I’m pretty sure you had to let them know about a change in income/hours as soon as it happened. Yes there was a delay in the payment but it wasn’t as simple as being a year in lieu!

And the original post mentioned working tax credits “to which they weren’t entitled” not sure if that was the poster’s view, or admitted in the book?

It was also tied to “working 30+ hours” which suggests it wasn’t related to the holiday let, or SalRay’s part-time bookkeeping, more likely poor TimMoth wasn’t earning enough despite being a full-time master plasterer.

Sure would love to know what the editorial team is brainstorming now for book 4 now that the weary old format has been rumbled and their poor brave author is now known to have embezzled her way to homelessness in book 1.

As an ex-doctor, having re-read the highlighted bit in the book I actually think it DOES mean "the sizeable mass of the brain" and is just badly worded.
It means ( in my interpretation):
"The two sets of results are as follows:
The OLD DAT scan showed an abnormal reading.
The NEW results are a NORMAL DAT scan and a 'DECENT SIZE'/NON-SHRUNKEN Brain size ie the mass of the brain.
And in our understanding of Parkinsonism, we shouldn't have two sets of results that are not progressive, but in fact appear to show some improvement."

It only makes sense to mean overall brain size not a distinct mass, BECAUSE of the way it's phrased where the old result/s are contrasted with the new. And the new ones both are positive/good news.

I haven't read all the threads or the books, but have avidly followed along recently, so I don't know whether there has been a written account of what the/a previous MRI showed.

Presumably they had to be somewhere fairly accessible to be able to attend all the talks/ signings/ gigs etc that were planned before the s* hit the fan. A remote croft in the wilds of Scotland might be more appealing to them now.

I've been thinking about the written style of these clinic letters. Now this may be totally incorrect, but given the "clunkiness" of the style, I wonder if English is this consultant's first language. In fact, if it's who I think it probably is, I see he used to be a leading light in the Welsh language medical association, so must be able to speak Welsh fluently. Clearly he also speaks English fluently, and did his medical degree in English, but if it's not his first language that might explain the stylistic anomalies.

Obviously this in no way whatsoever casts any doubt on his clinical acumen!

(Apologies if this is entirely inappropriate/incorrect!)

I live near the Peak District and I can hazard a guess who that was. Nipple rings by any chance?😂

Oh my goodness, I was too busy trying to shield my teen from the horror to look too closely!

Raymoth, Julie and Dave from up North on their Iceland trip.

But it doesn’t explain why PSHA have cut ties with Raymoth and not issued a statement of support,

Or it may just be how the typist has heard it from the uploaded dictation. Most of these letters are sent out without being checked by doctors because it was causing such a backlog.

Yes, very kneejerk reaction by the charity. You would think a charity would wait to be in possession of all the facts before making a decision like this. I wonder what part of the whole debacle they particularly took issue with

😂

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