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.

It's not just the literary world, its the media in general. Sophie Raworth, Michael Portillo, The Rev Richard Coles, Jeremy Isaacs. They all came under her spell!

*peaked

Of course it was. However, it's one of the most honest and worthwhile things she does in the book for me, given her notable list of excuses at other points for why she can't get a job when they clearly need money. For middle aged women who don't have a stellar employment history (not, in everyone’s case, because of their embezzling past: I mean through having kids or other caring responsibilities, not having qualifications, etc) cash in hand work may be the route they take. But at least then you're earning money yourself and not claiming tax credits you shouldn't have, or expecting things for free, while being snide about business owners, 'box tickers' and the like. My view and others may disagree.

I think the Portillo exchange particularly revelatory. It’s almost as though she did some wild camping alone. Any arguments?

Was this linked on thread 13? I'll have to go back and watch it.

Sheep shearing is very skilled work.

Please do, be interested in your take!

I agree, I didn’t mean to be critical of her being paid cash in hand, it’s common with that type of work. Was just responding to a PP who questioned where they had got the cash from.

Absolutely, but SW wasn’t shearing, she was packing the fleeces. Tiring, smelly and needing speed/dexterity, for sure, but not skilled like shearing.

I don’t think she did the actual shearing, I believe her job was to wrap and pack the fleeces.

They would do well to have a chat with Mr Portillo about rehabilitating yourself from widespread public opprobrium. However, I think he did it by first and foremost not whingeing about his lot and I'm not sure that's the Raymoth way. Actually, I'm sure it's not the Raymoth way!

Seriously unhelpful portrayal for genuinely homeless people I would have thought.

She wasn't sheep shearing - she was bagging and tying up the fleeces.

About the brother and HNTDDD: one thing that intrigues me is that the protagonists in that book are described as having 'a van full of children' which describes the brother's situation better than that of Raymoth.

Also, I read some of his blog posts and I think he is really good at describing absurdly humorous episodes - which seems to be the vibe of at least parts of HNTDDD (although that one excerpt floating around does sound a lot like TSP 🤔) and possibly the planned follow up about a 'romp around the country site'.

So the brother might have been involved in the writing, or possibly served as an inspiration, and Tim maybe took a more active role in writing as well? He seems to be a much less gloomy character than Sally.

And when that approach didn't work out, Sally took over with the 'woe is me' and 'being healed by nature' angle which turned to be far more successful.

My gut feeling from the available pictures is that he seems a lot more happy about the situation than she is

He always looks as if he hasn't a care in the world!

I think one of the sad aspects of TSP is that it has set the bar impossibly high for travel writers who try and stick to the truth.

Unless you are Paddy Leigh-Fermor or Bruce Chatwin (who maybe applied a certain artistic licence to their travelogues), chances are that your true life experience travelling or walking are going to be a whole lot less "interesting" or "challenging" than Raymoth's narrative in TSP.

She has done travel writers who try and stick to the truth and let the narrative hold its own ( such as Colin Thubron/William Dalrymple/Dervla Murphy) a huge disservice.

True, but I think the responsibility for that lies at least as much with the publisher and all the fawning literary critics who push stories like hers (and the reading, book-buying public plays a part as well).Po

Where did that Po come from?!

https://www.facebook.com/Sinha47/videos/298328268520974/

From 20:00 ish @PullTheBricksDown etc Ray meets Portillo.

Posted this before- Bill Bryson in Guardian interview “ After the American success of A Walk in the Woods, it was assumed he would now” do the Pacific Crest Trail or some other walk. They (his publisher) would have given me a fortune because they can sell the same book over and over again. But while I had a wonderful experience, I certainly didn’t want to write another book about hiking. For a start, nothing happens. You just put one foot in front of the other. You might have a great day, but it’s not an interesting thing to write about, let alone read”.”

She didn't do the shearing herself. She wrapped the fleeces up for the shearers.

As far as the PCT is concerned, I think Bill Bryson was right. But the SWCP when you are only covering 5 miles a day, surrounded by history, fantastic scenery and quite a few hikers that is possibly a different story....

can you imagine the pressure this puts on the Walkers’ relationship? I mean, maybe they are absolutely loved-up twin souls who are bonded ever closer by this whole tissue of lies and half-truths and fame, but, conversely, if either changed their mind about how to handle things, or had an affair, or one wanted to come clean and one didn’t, or there was a dispute about money, the consequences would be messy.

I still have a spidey sense that TimMoth’s expensive tastes, his cheery demeanour (as pp have noted, he doesn’t seem to have a care in the world), and his noted charisma- in combination with SalRay’s glumwashing and lack of self confidence (by contrast, she appears to have the weight of the world on her shoulders)- had a lot, if not everything, to do with a nice “girl from Mowbray” ending up blackening her pure soul with distasteful embezzlement. That idolisation of a charismatic person is so dangerous for someone with low self esteem because they’re (we’re) so easily manipulated and you can end up contorting yourself into all kinds of shapes if the object of your idolatry is the type to make you feel as if every disappointment they suffer is your responsibility to make right.

From there I can imagine everything being about him and making him happy. And right now, he can sit back and still say to her, “this is all your fault”. They’re married, she could lose half of everything to him even if he’s been the force pushing her into debt, crime etc and it’s her writing that’s got them out.

Certainly helps the story if you have a bizarre traveling buddy such as “Steven Katz” to provide comic value along the way ( A Walk in the Woods ), there’s not so much opportunity to interact with others on these big US walks. Really helps to have traveling companions I think- Mark Twains fellow travelers, who he was fantastically rude about, provided plenty of laugh out loud moments in “ Innocents Abroad”.

Possibly…. But (assuming she wrote the books, not him) she’s the one who seems to have the real chip on her shoulder, resentful of other people who she perceives as having it better/ easier than her. It’s quite possible that Moth is genuinely the more genial, easy going, sociable character and really isn’t as driven by wanting money and a great lifestyle as much as she is.

Who really knows?

One thing I certainly agree with is that there seems a power imbalance in the relationship which is never a healthy thing. She seems in awe of him and assumes all other females would feel the same, which places her in a vulnerable position.