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 colour of the sand isn’t quite right for it to be Whipsy.

Im pretty sure it’s Red Cove at Bedruthan.

Do we know how long they have known him?
I posted before how their public statement after the Observer article sounded like they only had been in contact with him since 2018.

But that would in itself be a bit strange, since we know the doctor writing the 2015 letter specifically informed Tim about the PSPA as a source for information and support, but then he apparently waited 3 years until the book came out and being publicly associated with them gave credibility to his status as a patient until he contacted them?

Can I just say I’m loving this level of granular detail?

(See what I did there?)

So do you think it matches the TSP description of a 'hemp hat with a thin one inch brim', and do you believe it is likely that fashion-conscious Tim packed it to wear it himself?

Where you circle doesn’t have space to the south to have the islands/rocks that poke out beyond the high tide marker though (sea is clearly on the right of the pic). They’d need to be Zacry’s islands themselves so viewed from the north eg very south of watergate which I don’t think matches.

bedruthan now closed but back in 2013 (or 2015!) it would have been open.

The coastline matches the perspective from Whipsderry / Porth Island direction.

Top image is the RW photo, bottom is one from online.

I can get on board with that description - straw, hemp, raffia, paper are all much of a muchness to the casual observer. Here's a similar one, described as having a slouchy brim.

Was it Tim's? Maybe, maybe not.

Do I wonder why Sally didn't fashion a makeshift turban from a piece of clothing when she was hatless? Definitely!

@toooom see images above

I’ve been to quite a few stadium gigs in hot weather this summer, and a lot of middle-aged men were wearing very similar bucket hats. Maybe TW was ahead of fashion…

Also we know TW had a hat and a bandana from different images (unless they were taken on seperate trips). Seems like another pointless fabrication.. "hatgate"

This is better thread is more engaging than watching the police at work on a true crime documentary.

I don't know anything about true NPD but there is an immaturity in SW's writing with her teenagerish embellishments and snidey disparaging of others. Definite hints of a sheltered upbringing in that immaturity and certainly an inferiority complex running through everything I'd say. Confidence began to build as attention was piled on her post publication and she began to lap it all up. I think it provided the approval she had always sought.

Good analysis.

I think that’s what I’m enjoying about it. I’m horrified by ‘true crime’ because it seems to me to trivialise horrors, usually murders, into entertainment. (I’ve friends who work in forensics/crime scene photography and forensic archaeology, and the pain of the people affected is terrible.

Here the crimes are smaller, not subject to legal process, and the perpetrators have monetised them themselves in book form, so I see it as a legitimate space for analysis and speculation!

She is certainly searching the limelight, but I can't get over how miserable she looks to me in so many pictures.
I don't think all the attention is really building her confidence - she seems more like an addict chasing something that never delivers the satisfaction she yearns for.

Ah I see what you mean now. Looking back the other way.

I suppose there must have been a point when the acclaim wasn’t just a positive thing any more and when she began to feel the pressure. I can’t imagine how anyone can do what she’s done without some feeling of anxiety at being found out. Even if in her head she still tells herself she’s innocent and just made ‘mistakes,’ she clearly wanted to hide a lot of the past.

it makes you wonder why she was comfortable with selling film rights, knowing this would ramp up the attention even more… I suppose there’s various possible reasons. Maybe having got away for years without being exposed, the feeling of invincibility outweighed any reservations. Or maybe in a weird way she even thought a film with famous actors would provide greater protection - that no one would question or fact check now she’d reached this level of public recognition.

it’s certainly very interesting from a psychological point of view.

I think it may be in part as straightforward as processes just steamrollering.

At first you sign with an agent, delighted they're enthusiastic about your book, then the book sells to an editor who is equally enthusiastic, and you happily sign another contract, with no real idea at this point of how much success your book will enjoy.

You're contracted to do a certain amount of publicity anyway, and because it's your life story (well, carefully adjusted and curated aspects of it!) as much as or more than what is between two covers, there's a lot of media interest. You get used to that, and sticking to your script. People are delighted by you at book events, and Gigspanner gigs. You are invited to teach nature writing at Arvon. You're a patron of/spokesperson for a couple of charities. You write sequels.

You sign foreign distribution/translation deals for the original book, and at some point someone options it for film.

Most options are never taken up, even after being renewed for years, as your agent and editor will tell you, so it doesn't feel like a big deal. Until suddenly it does. A production company offers you a chunk of money and have backing to make a film of your book. Your agent is delighted, your publisher is delighted, and they assume you're going to be delighted, too. Because why wouldn't you be? Difficult to suddenly do a U-turn and come up with excuses for why you don't want it filmed, maybe.

Or maybe SW did feel a false sense of security three books in.

It’s also all about the money. Film - mega bucks etc, in their minds. Balance of risk, so far not exposed, so…

I think it is pretty simple.

SW has been accused of a very serious financial crime. She (allegedly) took advantage of a position of trust to embezzle money from her employer. The corroborating statements from multiple unrelated parties about the theft and loan (from Ros Hemings and Cooper’s wife) published by The Observer are pretty damning.

No charity will want to be associated with a fundraiser accused of abusing a position of trust to steal huge sums of money.

I don’t think they know any more than anyone else about Moth’s health (as some PPs have suggested). Realistically, the letters RayMoth published do state that Moth has a diagnosis of CBD/CBS (the latest letter from 2025) and that he was referred to the charity for advice by his neurologist. Although I am sure they have concerns about being associated with RayMoth’s snake oil claims now, the embezzlement accusation will have made their decision fairly black and white. It’s a serious accusation with strong evidence. That is reason enough to cut ties.

Well, it won't have been megabucks for a small UK-produced film whose total budget was something like £7 million (or so I think someone said?), though.

Agree, I assumed once all this blew up that the charity cutting ties was about the embezzlement first and foremost. Why would a charity want to be associated with someone who’s committed a crime like this? Any actions, fund raising or publicity raising by the Walkers is now tainted because they wouldn’t be in the public eye without having made millions out of lies.

No although not sure we know how successful film is yet? Film def means significantly extra £££ I think.

I think that's probably fair. I don't have the statement to hand (is it still knocking around?), but I remember them assuring people that all moneys raised by the Walkers had been received in full by the charity -- I assume they were worried about a Belle Gibson situation, where she'd solicited charity donations totalling hundreds of thousands of dollars and hadn't handed them over to the charities the money was supposedly raised for.

And I seem to remember also that the parents of a child with cancer whom BG had befriended discovered later that she'd been using their child's name, but had never passed on any money from book sales, and that they suspected she was actually using their friendship and their conversations about their child's illness to garner details that she could use herself to make her own fake cancer claims more credible.

Which is both horrifying in itself (this family then had a lot of online trolling on their own fundraising and blog pages because they were now associated in the public mind with a cancer scammer) and would be deeply alarming to a legitimate charity who wondered if its association with SW and TW was in fact going to mean people stopped donating, or in fact giving credibility to a fake illness claim.

I can imagine a charity thinking they needed to act fast, and that if the Walkers were later able to refute CH's claims about embezzlement and health fraud, they would be happy to apologise and renew the association.

Afternoon all. Hope you are all well today. I see I've got some more catching up to do, you chatty lot.