Page 40 | Thread 14: To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film?

AldoGordo · 14/08/2025 10:15

Animaladina · 14/08/2025 10:07

@Featherbeds

SW says in that Magnussen interview that PRH ‘sprang it on her’ that she would have to do publicity for TSP at the last minute, and that shed been horrified, and ‘tried to get the book back’. I hadn’t heard that before , and wondered if there were a grain of truth to it? That she didn’t realise that some publicity was contractual, and panicked that she wouldn’t be able to remember her various halftruths, rejigged chronologies etc?

Sounds about right, SW panicked and produced a manuscript to which she’s been holding on and repeating the same thing over and over in each and one of the interviews 🫠

It's as if she's trapped herself in Groundhog Day. I wonder if @DisappointedReader feels the same now that thread 15 is approaching 😂

Catwith69lives · 14/08/2025 10:17

SwetSwetSwet · 14/08/2025 10:12

Thank you, I didn't realise that. It does seem strange that the brother hasn't sold his bit of land though.

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It wouldn't have much value unless the two properties were sold in tandem. Did the brother suggest to TW that he buy the djacent property in 2007, with an understanding that TW would do both properties up and then both properties would be sold to a 3rd party at a profit? Seems little logic to Raymoth increasing the mortgage on the Pen-y-Maes to buy the French property unless they planned to redevelop it. If TW left the NT job in 2007, perhaps he planned to do the work in France while SW managed the b&b business in Wales.

TheBrandyPath · 14/08/2025 10:22

AldoGordo · 14/08/2025 10:01

For PRH to allow RW to say such things about it being barely edited and such a quick turnaround it can only mean either it is true, or PRH have created this backstory and persona of RW as a publishing phenomenon.

[ETA] or PRH couldn't care less what she spouts as long as it sells books.

Edited

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I entered this at Thread 9 (after reading all the rest of you, avidly) with my indignation that IzSalRay had wone the inaugural RSL Christopher Bland Prize.

Looking at the timing - I wonder if the Penguin editor had realised this would be his legacy and encouraged Winn Winn to write with this in mind?

It would contribute to the over-emphasis on them being 50 (get it) in TSP. And the seemingly 'raw' never-before-published writing.

Mr Bland may even be there as a sort of honorary cameo - in the person of Grant!

Bland had a long-standing interest in the cultivation of wine, and in 1995 bought a 19th-century house with a large wine cellar containing numbered alcoves to accommodate 1,000 bottles of Bordeaux, 100 bottles of Champagne, and 120 bins of white Burgundy. Two years later, he bought a small vineyard next to his home in Gascony in France, planting Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, producing about 1,000 litres a year.
(Wikipedia}

Named in his honour, the RSL Christopher Bland Prize was launched in 2018 by the Royal Society of Literature to encourage the work of older writers and awarded annually to an author of a fiction or non-fiction book who was first published when aged 50 or over.

RSL Christopher Bland Prize - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSL_Christopher_Bland_Prize

AldoGordo · 14/08/2025 10:24

Vroomfondleswaistcoat · 14/08/2025 10:15

This is actually weird. Because if TSP hadn't been a huge success, then any publicity SW did would be very very minimal, maybe the odd book signing but no talks, no interviews, no literary festivals etc. Publicity work is only really called for when the book is a big success. But SW 'always wanted to be a writer' in which case she would know this.

So either - she wanted the book to be a huge success in which case she would know she would have to do publicity; or she DIDN'T want it to be a success so she wouldn't have to do publicity, but in which case, why would she want PRH on it? Why not send it to a much smaller (even local to TSP) publisher, have a much smaller selling book but without having to get up on her hind legs and talk about it?

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Again, this suggests to me a PR "persona", tapping into a rags to riches narrative. One minute RW is homeless and facing terminal illness of the love of her life, distrusting and introverted, the next she's thown into the limelight as a bestselling unknown author. The PR narrative feeds off the book narrative.

Vroomfondleswaistcoat · 14/08/2025 10:25

TheBrandyPath · 14/08/2025 10:22

I entered this at Thread 9 (after reading all the rest of you, avidly) with my indignation that IzSalRay had wone the inaugural RSL Christopher Bland Prize.

Looking at the timing - I wonder if the Penguin editor had realised this would be his legacy and encouraged Winn Winn to write with this in mind?

It would contribute to the over-emphasis on them being 50 (get it) in TSP. And the seemingly 'raw' never-before-published writing.

Mr Bland may even be there as a sort of honorary cameo - in the person of Grant!

Bland had a long-standing interest in the cultivation of wine, and in 1995 bought a 19th-century house with a large wine cellar containing numbered alcoves to accommodate 1,000 bottles of Bordeaux, 100 bottles of Champagne, and 120 bins of white Burgundy. Two years later, he bought a small vineyard next to his home in Gascony in France, planting Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, producing about 1,000 litres a year.
(Wikipedia}

Named in his honour, the RSL Christopher Bland Prize was launched in 2018 by the Royal Society of Literature to encourage the work of older writers and awarded annually to an author of a fiction or non-fiction book who was first published when aged 50 or over.

Show quote history

I got hugely indignant about this a few (dozen) pages ago. In fact all this makes me feel so indignant that your Writing Correspondent (Nudist specialism) is going to actually put on some clothes and go for a nice, cleansing walk.

I promise not to write a book about it, though.

Featherbeds · 14/08/2025 10:26

AldoGordo · 14/08/2025 10:15

It's as if she's trapped herself in Groundhog Day. I wonder if @DisappointedReader feels the same now that thread 15 is approaching 😂

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I suspect @DisappointedReader is contemplating approaching her rapidly expanding rabbit hutch with a shotgun. Like the Walkers fantasising about rabbit stew in their tent.😀

FloreatAmbridge · 14/08/2025 10:29

Animaladina · 14/08/2025 09:42

@Vroomfondleswaistcoat

Yet SW is almost proud of the haste with which TSP came out? Which makes me wonder why.

Because in her own head she’s simply better than other writers. The book hardly required editing (was written so well in the first place) and also got published almost immediately! Just wow!
The ego and grandiose of this woman is astonishing!

Grandiose Delusions:
In psychology, grandiosity refers to an unrealistic belief in one's own importance, abilities, or significance. Wikipedia explains it as an exaggerated sense of self-worth and superiority that is not based on reality

Not sure I entirely agree with this. I think it's more a humblebbrag kind of shtick really. She and MW like to pass her off as an everywoman who fell into writing by accident: words to the effect of <I'd never written a word before, but decided to send in this piece of writing I'd done for personal reasons, next thing I knew it was being published.> And obviously that's not true in any sense. She's said herself she dreamed of being a writer as a child. We have very good reason to believe she wrote HNTDDD, and one assumes it wasn't her first attempt at writing something. We know from CH that there was a somewhat different first draft of TSP, so there was clearly an editing process between submission and publication; from the experiences others have shared here it was probably quite an involved editing process.

And all that's basically fine in itself, there's nothing at all wrong with a would-be writer honing their craft and polishing up their work. It's just led her into this silly place where she doesn't want to admit to being ambitious and putting in hard graft on her writing.

(Although as so often there's probably a grain of truth; as again has been discussed here, falling into publication unprepared may explain how she ended up fronting a highly visible film on the media circuit).

FurryHappyKittens · 14/08/2025 10:29

I'm currently updating the timeline.

I've added some bits from the Observer video released yesterday, a couple of Big Issue dates, and so on.

Thank you to everyone who has DMd with suggestions.

I've not been around as much as I'd like, so if there's anything anyone wants in it, speak now as this thread is nearly full!

The timeline won't be updated for a couple of weeks after the one on Thread 15, so any threads between now and September will have the same timeline..

In the meantime, if anyone has any dates they want added (please include references), DM me, and I'll update properly at the beginning of September.

Thanks everyone!

FloreatAmbridge · 14/08/2025 10:31

Vroomfondleswaistcoat · 14/08/2025 08:55

You are right @fruit66 and I apologise to Mark (and the memory of Boogie). I absolutely LOVED both those books when they came out, they were favourites of my mum who passed them on to me. I reread both in the last few years when I was writing something about the Dorset coast (because now I live a long way from Dorset, but to avoid TSP-type allegations, I did live there for a long while).

I also seem to recall SW does a lot of 'TW studied XY and Z' but without mentioning whether or not he studied officially or passed any exams in said subject. Which might be why we get confused with what his actual qualifications are?

After MW completes his studies in TWS, SW calls him "Mothman BSc" (Bachelor of Science, ie a degree). Take with the usual pinch of salt accompanying anything SW says.

Lostinnewyork · 14/08/2025 10:31

Vroomfondleswaistcoat · 14/08/2025 10:15

This is actually weird. Because if TSP hadn't been a huge success, then any publicity SW did would be very very minimal, maybe the odd book signing but no talks, no interviews, no literary festivals etc. Publicity work is only really called for when the book is a big success. But SW 'always wanted to be a writer' in which case she would know this.

So either - she wanted the book to be a huge success in which case she would know she would have to do publicity; or she DIDN'T want it to be a success so she wouldn't have to do publicity, but in which case, why would she want PRH on it? Why not send it to a much smaller (even local to TSP) publisher, have a much smaller selling book but without having to get up on her hind legs and talk about it?

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Are promotional obligations not laid out in the contract ( signed way before 'last minute' ? Therefore she cannot possibly have been taken by surprise.

Original poster

DisappointedReader · 14/08/2025 10:34

Please slow right down now a wee bit dear rabbits until you see the link go up.

OP posts:

Featherbeds · 14/08/2025 10:39

Animaladina · 14/08/2025 10:07

@Featherbeds

SW says in that Magnussen interview that PRH ‘sprang it on her’ that she would have to do publicity for TSP at the last minute, and that shed been horrified, and ‘tried to get the book back’. I hadn’t heard that before , and wondered if there were a grain of truth to it? That she didn’t realise that some publicity was contractual, and panicked that she wouldn’t be able to remember her various halftruths, rejigged chronologies etc?

Sounds about right, SW panicked and produced a manuscript to which she’s been holding on and repeating the same thing over and over in each and one of the interviews 🫠

I realised it turned it off too soon and just listened to that bit.

I genuinely find that hard to believe, even in the context of SW’s highly individual relationship to ‘truth’.

Obviously it fits the narrative of SW as humble and unambitious for her writing (‘I only wrote it to jog Moth’s faltering memory! The printer ink ran out! I tied it up with string as a cheapie birthday present! It was my daughter’s idea to publish it and, silly old me, I thought she meant buy it a plastic folder, teehee!’) but, even with the best will in the world, both things cannot be true.

Either she wrote it for a private gift to Moth, in which case she’d have had to do a huge amount of rewriting to make it publishable, or she wrote it with the intention of trying to find a publisher, in which case, it’s not some kind of natural, unmediated outpouring for a spouse, but a consciously worked on artefact written and sold with an eye to reader appeal. (There’s nothing at all wrong with this, obviously! But it doesn’t fit the ‘little old unworldly me’ narrative.)

If she’s telling the truth that TSP only needed a light edit, apart from one chapter (I wonder which? Removing her mother’s death? Or the court case and diagnosis backstory?), I suppose it’s possible that all the real interventionist stuff was done with her agent, before she sold it.

That would make it technically true that PRH published the MS much as they received it, but only because her agent had pulled it into shape before sending it.

FurryHappyKittens · 14/08/2025 10:40

AldoGordo · 14/08/2025 10:15

It's as if she's trapped herself in Groundhog Day. I wonder if @DisappointedReader feels the same now that thread 15 is approaching 😂

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😂😂😂

Original poster

DisappointedReader · 14/08/2025 11:31

Well, you can all stop tapping your impatient rabbits' feet now because here is Thread 15:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5391595-thread-15-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

The trusty charabanc is about to depart with the luggage rack loaded with fudge, cider, flea spray and a brand new life-size cardboard cut-out Simon Armitage. Once this thread is completely full, please will all scone eaters, correspondents, reproducing rabbits, lurkers and naked hikers board in the usual disorderly fashion. Time to sally forth!

Thread 15: To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film? | Mumsnet

The Observer's original exposé: [[https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/the-real-salt-path-how-the-couple-behind-a-bestseller-left-a-trail-of-d...

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5391595-thread-15-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film

OP posts:

AldoGordo · 14/08/2025 11:42

Featherbeds · 14/08/2025 10:39

I realised it turned it off too soon and just listened to that bit.

I genuinely find that hard to believe, even in the context of SW’s highly individual relationship to ‘truth’.

Obviously it fits the narrative of SW as humble and unambitious for her writing (‘I only wrote it to jog Moth’s faltering memory! The printer ink ran out! I tied it up with string as a cheapie birthday present! It was my daughter’s idea to publish it and, silly old me, I thought she meant buy it a plastic folder, teehee!’) but, even with the best will in the world, both things cannot be true.

Either she wrote it for a private gift to Moth, in which case she’d have had to do a huge amount of rewriting to make it publishable, or she wrote it with the intention of trying to find a publisher, in which case, it’s not some kind of natural, unmediated outpouring for a spouse, but a consciously worked on artefact written and sold with an eye to reader appeal. (There’s nothing at all wrong with this, obviously! But it doesn’t fit the ‘little old unworldly me’ narrative.)

If she’s telling the truth that TSP only needed a light edit, apart from one chapter (I wonder which? Removing her mother’s death? Or the court case and diagnosis backstory?), I suppose it’s possible that all the real interventionist stuff was done with her agent, before she sold it.

That would make it technically true that PRH published the MS much as they received it, but only because her agent had pulled it into shape before sending it.

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Originally, RW said she wrote 40 pages for Moth (in a 2018 interview...need to locate it). This story has since morphed into her having written the largely unchanged, book-length manuscript for Moth.

MarmiteWine · 14/08/2025 11:46

Featherbeds · 14/08/2025 10:39

I realised it turned it off too soon and just listened to that bit.

I genuinely find that hard to believe, even in the context of SW’s highly individual relationship to ‘truth’.

Obviously it fits the narrative of SW as humble and unambitious for her writing (‘I only wrote it to jog Moth’s faltering memory! The printer ink ran out! I tied it up with string as a cheapie birthday present! It was my daughter’s idea to publish it and, silly old me, I thought she meant buy it a plastic folder, teehee!’) but, even with the best will in the world, both things cannot be true.

Either she wrote it for a private gift to Moth, in which case she’d have had to do a huge amount of rewriting to make it publishable, or she wrote it with the intention of trying to find a publisher, in which case, it’s not some kind of natural, unmediated outpouring for a spouse, but a consciously worked on artefact written and sold with an eye to reader appeal. (There’s nothing at all wrong with this, obviously! But it doesn’t fit the ‘little old unworldly me’ narrative.)

If she’s telling the truth that TSP only needed a light edit, apart from one chapter (I wonder which? Removing her mother’s death? Or the court case and diagnosis backstory?), I suppose it’s possible that all the real interventionist stuff was done with her agent, before she sold it.

That would make it technically true that PRH published the MS much as they received it, but only because her agent had pulled it into shape before sending it.

Show quote history

I think in the Magnusson interview she says something like if she'd realised it was going to be read for so many she'd have left out personal stuff, like mention of bowel habits.

I wonder when Angela Harding was commissioned to do the cover artwork.

CarrySlipStitchOver · 14/08/2025 11:56

Are you going on holiday @FurryHappyKittens ? Is that why you won't be updating the timeline for a while?

If so, I'm curious as to where you are going between now and September 2025 give or take a year or two (and where you are actually going iyswim) and whether you'll be walking anywhere and if so will it be clockwise or anticlockwise, and who you are going to meet along the way and whether you've remembered a hat. 😀

If anyone else has plans, happy to hear them. I, sadly, have none and, due to a disaster that happened at the start of this week, may choose to stay in bed hiding under the duvet until September or later because I don't want to deal with the fallout from it. I could do with hearing some exciting plans to take my mind of things.

Catwith69lives · 14/08/2025 11:58

One incident recounted in TSP (p176) that I can't quite get my head around is the elderly American lady (Betsie) who is encountered on the path between Porthcurno and Lamorna Cove who is looking for John Le Carre's house where she used to stay with the author when she was younger. She flies to the UK every year to walk the SWCP and try and find where Le Carre's house is. This seems scarcely believable as the SWCP runs adjacent to John Le Carre's house (Tregiffian). It's completely crackers!

John Le Carré's spectacular clifftop home in Cornwall has come on to the market | Country Life

Thread 14: To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film?

Skye99 · 14/08/2025 12:03

Animaladina · 14/08/2025 10:15

Perhaps they couldn’t go back to France
a) because they owed loads of unpaid taxes (tax demanding letters arriving at the repossessed cottage in Wales)
b) TW told the locals he had a cancer and probably also played the same “I have a few months/ years” to live narrative?
if they returned they’d have to pay the debts and explain the miraculous recovery 🤔

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Also, could they have claimed their £48 a week tax credits in France?

Animaladina · 14/08/2025 12:13

I doubt it! 🤯

TheBrandyPath · 14/08/2025 12:14

@AzureStaffy In fact the whole book reads like a patchwork of walks taken here and there, with a few political and social issues levered in, ideas and passages lifted from other writers and the internet, some sentimental overblown descriptions of nature, some unpleasant portraits of other walkers and an inadequate explanation of illness, all held together by a tissue of lies to conceal the stealing.

I really like this summary. Looking forward to what we come up with next ........

Vroomfondleswaistcoat · 14/08/2025 12:18

Lostinnewyork · 14/08/2025 10:31

Are promotional obligations not laid out in the contract ( signed way before 'last minute' ? Therefore she cannot possibly have been taken by surprise.

Show quote history

Obvs I do not have a contract from PRH, but I doubt they'd write exact publicity requirements into a contract (TV appearances etc) because PRH would have no way of knowing how well the book would go. So there's probably a 'perform whatever publicity is required' clause which anyone signing probably would hardly notice (although her agent should certainly have pointed it out), nor would she think that it meant quite the AMOUNT of publicity she's done. Although authors are ALWAYS allowed to opt out of any particular appearances, so none of it would be obligatory, as long as she did as much as PRH considered necessary.

I think she's put herself up for a lot of the public appearances. Places always email you (or your agent) asking if you'd be available to do X, at which point you can always be washing your hair to infinity.

FurryHappyKittens · 14/08/2025 12:21

Catwith69lives · 14/08/2025 11:58

One incident recounted in TSP (p176) that I can't quite get my head around is the elderly American lady (Betsie) who is encountered on the path between Porthcurno and Lamorna Cove who is looking for John Le Carre's house where she used to stay with the author when she was younger. She flies to the UK every year to walk the SWCP and try and find where Le Carre's house is. This seems scarcely believable as the SWCP runs adjacent to John Le Carre's house (Tregiffian). It's completely crackers!

John Le Carré's spectacular clifftop home in Cornwall has come on to the market | Country Life

She used to stay there, so why on earth wouldn't she recognise it as she walks past. Only in the fantasy world of Sally Walker!

Fandango52 · 14/08/2025 12:21

Just re-posting a link to the next thread (15!!), now we’re almost at the end of this one:
www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5391595-thread-15-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film

Original poster

DisappointedReader · 14/08/2025 12:22

DisappointedReader · 14/08/2025 11:31

Well, you can all stop tapping your impatient rabbits' feet now because here is Thread 15:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5391595-thread-15-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

The trusty charabanc is about to depart with the luggage rack loaded with fudge, cider, flea spray and a brand new life-size cardboard cut-out Simon Armitage. Once this thread is completely full, please will all scone eaters, correspondents, reproducing rabbits, lurkers and naked hikers board in the usual disorderly fashion. Time to sally forth!

Yes it really is Thread 15.

OP posts: