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.

We don’t know if it was kneejerk or something prior troubling them.

Come to think of it, I think some places outsource the actual typing, so the typist may not be in the UK or have English as a first language.

That was done a bit a few years back as the job's tedious and temps had to be recruited but not so much now. I don't think the outsourcing abroad worked well. Since NHS typists can work from home and the requirement to get the letters checked stopped, it was easier and quicker to get the letters out and meet targets. Most hospitals have 'transcription suites' for typing - a fancy way of saying typing pool.

Simple question.

TSP is apparently an unflinchingly honest memoir of a walk on the SWCP in 2013/4 undertaken by Raynor and Moth Winn recounted over 272 pages.

Based on all of the 3rd party documented evidence that has emerged over the last 5 weeks since the Observer exposee by CH, how many incidents/events can we say with complete certainty are 100% accurate and are exactly as described in TSP?

This reminds me - a few years ago (maybe quite a lot of years) I remember a series of newspaper reports about a naked hiking man. He was constantly getting arrested, but just went right back to it. Probably not the same one...

Hope someone's checked on Dave and Julie. As arguably the WWs' closest friends and walking buddies, they must surely have been abducted by aliens or be held hostage in their basement, since there is no sign of them defending their friends - even in an anonymous or 'on condition you then leave us alone' statement given to a journalist.

I did this work for a bit years ago and enjoyed it. Maybe I should see if it’s still available as a WFH job!

quite surprised by the Iceland pic- I imagined it much darker, less green and more obsidian and lava in the landscape!

As well as the NHS Jobs website, there's NHS Professionals you can register with to temp.

completely understand where you’re coming from - this is one of the reasons I’m so interested in this topic. Someone close to me has NPD. The disdain for others, the grandiosity, the fantastic embellishments, the lying (usually there’s a tiny, tiny tiny grain of truth), the victimhood ( it’s always somebody else’s fault) felt very very familiar. The rebuttal statement was a classic.
To be clear, absolutely not trying to claim SW has NPD, (it’s a serious disorder which is often bandied about completely inappropriately and can only be diagnosed by a full psychological assessment ) just that some of the traits seemed hideously familiar. Gives me a shiver up my spine.

To add, could the style also be a result of dictating the letters to a secretary in Welsh who then translated them into English? We only know the 2025 letter was dicated so can't really apply this theory to the others - but perhaps dicating such letters is standard practice?

They may have asked Ray/Moth to provide them with documentation supporting the CBD diagnosis. Maybe the charity's quick response was due to the conversation they had with the couple, no response from the couple (more likely) or no supporting documentation provided by Ray/Moth. Just guessing.

Well at least they admitted it openly I suppose

Nice of Penguin to put it out there?

They just mention it briefly in the book without justifying it. I'm guessing they thought it would be unkind of anyone to question that claim from the poor homeless OLD people.

Chalk up another W for the copy editing team.

I know the one you mean, problem was he didn’t even wear a g- string, just the hat, boots and rucksack.
Possibly some socks.

Well I've started to think that we should turn our "investigations" upside down, by that I mean to assume the narrative in TSP is fictional except where proven to be accurate - as regards timings and what actually happened. Was prompted by the latest Observer article to look at the start of their great adventure when they were apparently (per TSP) "dumped" on the streets of Taunton complete with rucksacks and left to fend for themselves.
The nearest known confirmed date/event before Taunton per timeline was the June 2013 N Wales property eviction, then July Gangani Ltd. Co. dissolution. Nothing from then on actually verifiable until they arrive at Polruan (Oct.2013 per TSP so unverifiable, but locals I believe got to know them so assume that is factual.) So in actual fact the WWs could have been anywhere and done anything between those two dates. I have a feeling the SP story was drafted out first then they drove to various locations on the path to fill in the gaps. (Some events occurred in 2015 - e.g. meeting the Parsons, this was retrofitted into the 2013 account.)
SW very cleverly maintains their homelessness situation for as long as possible so readers sympathies are also maintained. Firstly Moth's brother "20 miles away down the lane" is returning from holiday so after 2 weeks there they have to move on (to avoid overcrowding), can't afford to rent, don't fancy a Council House (was it beneath them, I can't remember), sofa surfing is OK short term but don't want to wear out their welcome (OK a fair enough reason) and just in case readers are thinking "surely if they were desperate for a roof over their heads they could live in the van" she actually mentions that their little diesel van isn't large enough to sleep in! Why mention this at all. It's a ploy to "justify" the walk ("nothing better to do") and the wild camping.

I'll post my thoughts on the Taunton-Minehead bus journey and the start of their journey on the SWCP - as set out in TSP - later.

Just another piece in the dishonesty pattern. Sometimes these people hide in plain sight. I suppose they thought they deserved it as they didn’t claim the benefits they may be entitled to. Or maybe they weren’t actually entitled to any.

This has reminded me of some unexpected sights whilst walking along the beach in Budleigh Salterton in Devon with my DC.

They would have been entitled to benefits, between them a lot more than £48 a week, but to claim them they’d have to prove they were actively looking for work by applying for jobs, going to interviews and visiting the job center, (unless they could provide proof that they were too ill to work). Feel like maybe they didn’t fancy the ….work bit?

Well, one assumes they are potentially two more people who discovered things were not as they’d been led to believe, and are quietly smarting, but don’t want media attention?

where did you locate that? Can I ask that?

Good idea turning it on its head. Would be useful to do both directions, much like how the Winn/Walkers did (or claimed to do) the SWCP.

Just to add, it might be missing from the excellent timeline put together by @FurryHappyKittens (tagging for timeline updates) but we do know two verifed July 2013 dates: 21st July is when they visited the son in Newquay where he lived at the time. 23rd July is when son took TW surfing.

Also, the company dissolution date doesn't tell us much as that's just when Companies House finalised the dissolution. The application to dissolve the company is perhaps more pertinent, which happened in April 2013 and was signed off by TW. From that moment on, TW wouldn't need to do anything.

I think they said something like” there are too many unanswered questions “ as the reason for cutting ties immediately. The PSPA charity really won’t have wanted to lose them as ambassadors as they did raise a lot of money, so if Raymoth had provided satisfactory answers to these questions ( about his diagnosis), I’ve no doubt they would have issued a statement in defense of them. There’s been 4 weeks and…..nothing.

Or, I suppose, alternatively, that Dave and Julie regarded them as slight oddballs with whom they’d done a few walks, some of whose statements didn’t always add up, but they just dismissed discrepancies, and things they don’t actually remember saying appearing in the books? Maybe their total incuriousness was part of their appeal for the Walkers.