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.

Yes - SalRay is very scathing about poles and equates them with being decrepit. She has to use one to get across the river and reports Julie saying something like “welcome to being old”.

I don’t think it’s a knee jerk reaction necessarily but probably more about risk management. Like most charities, PSPA should have a policy on ethical fundraising which determines who they accept money from, including any use that donor might make of the association with their charity name and whether it could cause reputational damage to the charity. So their decision to dissociate the charity from the Winn Walkers would be more about managing that risk than about the money they brought in. If anything, I think they should have been asking questions earlier in the fundraising relationship but it’s hard for a cash-strapped charity to turn down funding and free publicity - same for SW Coast Path Association.

Do I get to have a secondary Charity Correspondent role now?!

He wore this same hat in the photo of their reflection in a road mirror. Can't identify the location though. It's the hat RW describes in TSP. But I haven't seen any other photos of him wearing it.

I struggle to understand how anyone with a CBS/D diagnosis can climb onto a trig point, never mind plank on the top.

I'm sure there is a huge amount of detail in TSP which we will never know for sure whether it accurate or complete fiction.

However, there are two bit of info which should be discoverable:

1. When did Raymoth start living in Polruan in the flat in the Wesleyan chapel? They must surely have met people. Will Anna ever be persuaded to talk?
2. What about the man walking, Lettuce, the tortoise on a rope at Polperro dressed as if he was on safari in the 1950s:stone-coloured long shorts and matching gilet, with a wide brimmed hat. That is pretty unusual. Surely there are people out there who would remember having seen or met this person (if he ever existed)?

You should re-read the bit in the book, like I did after seeing this photo. It's unbelievable.

Hang on, I'll paste the excerpt here (this is on leg two, after Polly's):

The trig point stood among clumps of broom, with other paths leading off in every direction – it was impossible to see where to. Our home in Wales had been deep in mountainous countryside and whenever we had a moment spare, we walked in the hills. The children were pre-school when they climbed their first mountain, but as they grew older it often took some imagination to encourage them to be out in the cold on an arduous walk. Whenever we reached a trig point Moth would jump on and plank for a photo, lying on his stomach on the column and pretending to fly, anything to cheer up kids who were ready to give in. It became a family tradition, so the sight of the Golden Cap trig point was too appealing, CBD or not.

‘Do you think you can do it without hurting yourself?’

He dropped his pack down and putting his hands over the top of the column hoisted himself on. I waited for the cry of pain, the inevitable self-rebuke for having been so silly. It didn’t come. He spread his arms and flew into the clouds, free and floating, for all the world as if he would live forever. I ran around taking photos as if it was the first time he’d flown, or the last.

‘Maybe it’s the cabbage rub.’

His face was clear, he wasn’t even hiding pain, and he was laughing. In the fog-bound heather we hugged and jumped, laughing, kissing, shouting. Was this possible? From the point of not being able to get out of bed, back to strong and in control of his limbs in just under two weeks. This shouldn’t be possible. But it was. I should have noticed that I was no longer seeing the drag in his footprints, but it hadn’t registered.

‘Maybe it’s because we had a rest in Weymouth. Maybe my body’s adjusted quicker, like acclimatizing to altitude.’

‘But how? How can the stiffness have receded so quickly? On the north coast it took weeks.’

‘I’ve no idea; I knew it was feeling easier over the last couple of days, but I didn’t dare hope.’

‘Do you think it could be something to do with oxygen? I know we thought it before, because the path makes you breathe so deeply. That huge wash of oxygen – can it somehow affect the brain? It can’t be, though. If it was that simple, the hospital would just hand out oxygen tanks.’

‘I don’t know. It’s obviously got something to do with heavy endurance exercise. It must cause some sort of reaction that we don’t understand. I don’t know how it works, I just feel great.’ We jumped and danced in the fog of Golden Cap.

‘Be careful on the stairs.’

‘Don’t plan too far ahead.’

‘We don’t need to – we’ve got Paddy for that. Even if everything he says is backwards.’

[I wonder why we've never seen these photos?]

Can anyone find me the bit in TSP where they’re told they’ve been ‘salted’ and who said it? I no longer have a copy of the book and can’t bring myself to buy it again for some reason!

i entered a post twice by accident and now can’t delete it - still learning about MN 😕

It's free online here but I've pasted the section below too.

www.thetedkarchive.com/library/raynor-winn-the-salt-path

The path flattened and curved slowly down to Portheras Cove. Our clothes were drying in the wind as we followed a stream towards the beach. A Border collie rushed by, leaping from rock to rock, followed by a small woman with blond-grey hair, so long that even in a plait it was below her waist.
‘Hi, are you walking the path? Where are you heading?’
‘Land’s End, or maybe beyond.’
‘Not far now then. Where have you come from? Are you camping?’
‘Minehead, and yeah, we’ve wild camped most of the way.’
‘I can tell; you have the look.’
‘The look?’
‘It’s touched you, it’s written all over you: you’ve felt the hand of nature. It won’t ever leave you now; you’re salted. I came here thirty years ago and never left. I swim here every day, and walk the dog. People fight the elements, the weather, especially here, but when it’s touched you, when you let it be, you’re never the same again. Good luck, wherever your path takes you.’ She followed the dog and disappeared effortlessly over the headland.
‘Is this coast the land of sages and prophets? They seem to be around every corner.’
‘Salted. I like that. Flavoured, preserved, like the blackberries.’

She’s a ‘tough, remorseless campaigner for the underprivileged’ in TWS but seemingly also a counsellor who asks endless questions according to LL, reminding SW ‘why I’ve never gone to therapy’. (Or is it more likely that this is because being a compulsive liar in therapy would be self-defeating?)

(ETA, for various reasons, I know several counsellors and psychotherapists and a clinical psychologist, and none of them asks ‘endless questions’. I think this is based on nothing other than SW’s lazy stereotypes of what counsellors might be like socially , like her stereotypes of Cambridge actors at the Minack is weirdly luvvyish speech and men in hairnets.)

Dave and Julie’s main role, other than expanding the regular cast of SW and TW, appears to be eternal readiness to go on a walk with the Walkers — when they call them in TWS, they’ve always longed to go to Iceland, and in LL, they’ve apparently taken two weeks holiday from work but have no plans, so are available to walk the Pennine Way with them.

Also to be ‘objective’ external commenters on or sources of comparison for Tim’s deterioration since they last saw him. In Iceland, SW is apparently shocked by seeing giant, ‘big-framed’ Dave hug TW, because his unchanged size makes her see how much weight T has lost.

But the thing is that Dave and TW, in photos, look much the same in terms of size. TW is six foot two, were told, and certainly doesn’t seem to have a smaller frame or look noticeably fragile next to big Dave in photos of them both.

Someone asked upthread where this photo was taken.

From the colour of the sand, the shape of the rock formations and the curve of the coastline in the background I think it is likely to be Red Cove at Bedruthan.

Thank you!
I wonder if the woman who is supposed to have said this recognises herself from the description. It all sounds made up so it would be interesting to get her take on it. Portheras is on the Pendeen stretch of the coast

Great points! Yes, it’s all coming back to me now, from the long drives listening to LL and TWS. FWIW I’m a clinical psychologist and don’t think I ask tons of questions - agree it’s lazy stereotyping. This is also why I have a particular interest in Julie (as someone who is trained in mental health) and in what SalRay had to say about therapy.
It would be great to find Julie and “like Dave like” but there are a lot of counsellors called Julie and often people in these lines of work use aliases on social media…

I think this is more likely. I went to university in Wales and was taught by people who were first language Welsh speakers but who had done their multiple Oxbridge MPhils and PhDs in English. Their English written and spoken was perfect (mind you, most of them could switch between Classical Hebrew/Aramaic/Latin/Greek without having to think about it, so their linguistic skills were clearly exceptional)

Have also known a few monoglot English doctors who had a fairly clunky "writing" style (no reflection on them as medics) so who knows? I think dictation probably does make a difference.

But the thing is that Dave and TW, in photos, look much the same in terms of size. TW is six foot two, were told, and certainly doesn’t seem to have a smaller frame or look noticeably fragile next to big Dave in photos of them both.
I did wonder whether they were relatives 😀

I also wonder abot her hat - it looks like the one she is also wearing at Hartland point here
https://www.instagram.com/raynor.winn/p/BUjIilaBS2I/?hl=en
I posted the link before and someone said it looks woolly - not sure about the material but it looks knitted or crocheted or something?

But rather different I think to how she describes it in TSP:

My head’s on fire. Have you got a bandana or something?’ We headed out on to Holdstone Down; it was late afternoon but the sun was still hot.
‘You should have said – with all that hair I never think about you needing a hat. I’ve got the old hemp one in my pack.’
I shoved on the beaten-up hat with its skinny one-inch brim, bought long ago from a hippy market in Ibiza. It held the heat from my boiled head and soon I felt ten times hotter.

I don't see a skinny one-inch brim, and in general it's not a hat I can easily imagine Tim wearing, although it sounds like he packed it for himself?

Waterstones YouTube channel has SalRay discussing 3 of her favourite books from about 6 years ago. It's striking how natural and happy she is compared to when she's talking about her own books. Maintaining so many lies in public looks stressful for her and, even if she has little conscience, it must have caused anxiety regarding being caught out.

One of her favourite books is Marilyn French's The Women's Room and she speaks about equality for women. Clearly she's an avid reader and loves literature.

I think it looks to be south of Zacry's Islands near Newquay

I think it's a bucket hat, something like this hemp one online but thicker yarn. It does have a vague brim, I think she just badly described it and made sound more bohemian, free-spirited, and impractical than it was.

This is at the end of the SWCP in Poole. Where SalRay says they restarted the walk in 2014 after the stay at Polly's. Walking in the direction of Polruan.

I remember reading this under the influence of “unflinchingly honest” and feeling euphoria, so happy for them both. Reading it with hindsight makes me grimace. I’m reminded now of Del Boy using Uncle Albert as a stooge in the market (only fools and horses). I can’t remember what Del was selling but Albert goes from being crooked and hunched to dancing a sailor’s jig and the crowd catches on and melts away.

North? If those are Zacrys islands visible it would need to be taken from the watergate side? But I don’t remember it being that rocky/ mussel covered there

I think the charity could well have already been having doubts due to the length of time he reportedly had CBD and his lack of decline. I think they had known him about 7 years by the time the Observer report came out. They may have asked for some medical info but more likely they were just looking for a way to break contact without having to themselves have a potentially confrontational conversation. After all they are a charity which is their to support genuinely sick people and not used to people not being honest.

No, I mean south. It matches the background and it's near where they describe cooking mussels and camp according to TSP. (Attached map with approximate area where I'm thinking.)

That looks to me like it's crocheted from raffia or similar. An Internet search of 'striped straw bucket hat' brings up several similar hats.