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.

@AldoGordo
Yes, what I meant was the story of accidentally forgetting their supply ...

Hi! I'm another one desperately reading fast to catch up.

re: the episode above when they say they have to go all the way back to Barnstaple to get a prescription. It is another concocted drama.

I got the bus from Barnstaple to Westward Ho! There are pharmacies in W Ho! and Bideford.

For info: This picture is on SalRay’s Instagram - apparently during the LL walk.

Their walking diet wasn't just low protein though, it was low calorie full stop. I can't imagine how you'd do a day's walking on it as a regular thing. The other accounts of walking the SWCP I've read include people eating full English breakfasts in the morning quite often and hearty pub meals in the evenings - obviously all this was totally excessive and frivolous of them and quite insensitive to a homeless couple sharing a bowl of chips and a pot of hot water. #glumwashing

I confidently await the day we hear that a noodles and fudge diet has medical benefits. There was research done probably about 25 years ago now that said hospital food should be not only better quality but much higher calorie than it is, because the human body needs extra calories to support healing. I understand why people on a very tight budget eat like this, but it's terrible that they have to.

The text that goes with the MothMan photo

Also - so many echoes of 500 Mile Walkies in TSP.
(below 500 in bold, TSP in italics)

We changed at Barnstaple for the connection to Westward Ho!

The bus took us to Barnstaple, and then we changed on to another for Westward Ho! I felt as though I was cheating, and didn’t understand why.

... Westward Ho! despite its punctuation, is little more than a line of holiday accommodation.

We arrived in Westward Ho! disorientated by the unexpectedness of it and surprised by its greyness. The exclamation mark had made me expect something spectacular, but nothing I was seeing quite matched the ostentatious name.

The full names of O levels and A levels were General Certificate of Education (GCE) Ordinary (O) and Advanced (A) level. They were sometimes called GCEs.

If she only got 3 O levels and 1 CSE, that might explain why she retook Geography O level twice (probably in 1 year). It was more common to retake O levels back then. Retakes were in November. A lot of clerical or admin jobs and some vocational qualifications asked for 5 passes at O level (or CSE grade 1, including Maths and English eg bank clerk, bookkeeper etc. I believe 2 A levels plus 5 O levels (including Maths and English) was the magic number to be able to go to university or polytechnic. She might have scraped into a less well regarded polytechnic or teacher training college if she had managed to get a fifth O level and 2 A levels. Or Oxbridge, if she passed their own entrance exams and got an unconditional offer 😂

Common alternatives to A levels at college would have been agriculture or horticulture, floristry, NNEB (childcare), catering, cake decorating, secretarial courses, medical or legal secretarial courses, dental nursing, veterinary nursing, equestrian studies, trades/building, beauty, hairdressing. Or just retaking O levels to get enough to be able to get an office job. Most FE colleges offered evening classes in a wide range of O levels too. You could also start nursing training at 16.

Thanks @ShrinkWrappedInSeattle I am not on the Gram.

i failed my German O level but tonight I am Google translating a few articles. Here’s the "My Desk" series, authors introduce us to their workspaces. This time, author Raynor Winn shares her desk.
https://www.buchreport.de/news/kuechentisch-mit-blick-auf-den-obstgarten/

with a photo presumably Bill’s farm? “I don't write at a desk, though. It's the old kitchen table from my parents' house. As a child, I threw blankets over it and built dens out of them; as a teenager, I did my homework there. My father repaired the table several times”

the article is full of complaints - the table wobbles, the room is tiny and full of stuff, the window is stuck shut, the double glazing is full of condensation. She can glumwash anything!

I forgot tailoring and dressmaking! I also think there were some graphic design type courses, printing, technical drawing etc.

Wonder why they used the boxroom when the house has four bedrooms and a box room upstairs and three reception rooms downstairs (according to zoopla)

As a native speaker of german I have to disagree with your interpretation of 'glumwashing' - there is no actual complaining in this article, this is all to highlight how down to earth and humble she is. All those imperfections she lists culminate in:
Aber das ist nicht tragisch, denn ich brauche nicht viel Platz. - This isn't tragic, I don't need a lot of space.
She isn't some high-flying jetsetting millionaire author, she is a simple child of nature who doesn't need much and enjoys watching birds through her writing room window, even if that window is old and a bit foggy.

I'm sure we could put you to good use on this path of skulduggery!

It was brought in by MNHQ a little while ago to reduce sock puppetry. Once you have posted on a thread, you can only post on it under the same username. If you change your name, the new name will only apply to new threads you post on.

This article was published October 2022 when they were on Haye Farm.

Newbie here!

I have read everything for the last 84 years 14 threads, promise.

I just wanted to chip in about exams for the ancients. I did A levels back in 82 - 84. It was the first year my school had a sixth form and it was not the carefully managed sixth form of schools now:

• the majority of people in sixth form were doing resits. Thus the place emptied after Christmas. This was fine as it was just two classrooms with some lockers dividing the upper sixth and lower sixth Both rooms contained some old chairs and a few token desks. That was it.
• there were so few people doing A levels that I had six in my English class, five in biology, four in Art and me and my best friend in French. She left after a year so it was just me.
• the ones doing A levels had to deal with the occasional teacher who was very unprepared for this: one of my English teachers did THE WRONG FUCKING SHAKESPEARE (King Lear instead of Othello... I know) for an entire term because she decided we needed to get to know the bard better. Despite us already doing The Merchant of Venice and Macbeth for O levels and performing a Midsummer Night's Dream (in Dub) for drama one year.
• the head of sixth form was a sociopathic PE teacher who hated all the A level students for NOT doing PE. He somehow managed to mess up all our uni entries (none of us had a clue and he was put in charge of sorting it all out) so not one of us had any offers from anywhere, and I was only aiming for various polys with my seven O levels and 4 A levels
• They were so desperate for A level students that I started my French A level despite failing my O level! I did resit it in November and got an A...

I'm just pointing this out because not all schools were at that time were strict on criteria for A levels. Or indeed any good at teaching them! Mine would have taken anyone if they'd showed a vague interest in the subject, quite frankly. So Sally could have been doing A levels with her few O levels...

At my school, we were all jealous of Michael who went off to become a baker at 16 and did very well for himself with a posh shop in Marylebone.

Anyway, back to this fandango. I think there may be more to come out. It takes time to convince people to break their silence. Various journos will be working hard behind the scenes to crack some nuts. Not on that nudist beach though.

Our Sal - ever so 'umble.

Internationally 'umble even!

This is all so fascinating to me as an American! Your (we call it high school) requirements seem very complicated to me. I had to look up the acronyms. Kids in the U.S. ideally spend 4 years in high school school, some graduate in three years. Freshman, Sophomore, Junior Senior. If they do well in each class they take, they automatically get a high school diploma. If they haven't taken college-prep courses, they can still go to college, many go to community or junior colleges. And college-prep courses they don't take in high school, they can make up in college. Fairly easy, community college is cheap--students usually live at home. Amerian 4 year colleges can be very expensive.

Yes, that's the haye farm description

Ah, school days @DailyMaui . The happiest days of our lives, eh?!

I don't suppose you are one of our missing Americans @OakPark ? Any chance you came across our salty couple on the SWCP in 2013/2015/any year really pre-2018?

#IrrationallyHopefulLongshots

Haye farm has four bedrooms and a box room upstairs and three reception rooms??
I got the impression there was mainly mould and mice and water, didn't realize it was so grand.
Thought you might have referred to their current house, some people here seemed to have recognized it from the DM description.

Ha Ha! I wish I had been on the SWCP. I am still planning to hike your beautiful National Trails someday. I loved her books, was devastated to learn that so much of her story was fabricated and that she was an embezzler. I have tried to keep up with the UK RayMoth news, but there is not much here in the U.S. on the story. I had to jump onto this UK moms forum because y'all have the best tea!. I will be here until there is no more to learn!

Maybe he was the JANITOR

Just read Wikipedia's page on The Salt Path. There is a lot of human kindness in it.

The problem is they just look so nice and wholesome with their hand knitted hats and their Seasalt and Boden clothes and ( probably) Hunter Wellies. They don’t look like the average person’s idea of embezzlers, thieves and liars. They don’t look like shifty characters at all. I wonder if that’s why some people don’t believe the accusations.
Appearances sure can be deceptive.

I also noticed that someone calling himself Chiswick Chap seems to be policing the article. He also seems to have contributed to the articles on Beowolf and Simon Armitage.