Thread 15: 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 14 Observer items currently available on their online 'The real Salt Path' page: The real Salt Path | The Observer

4 more from The Observer:
‘Hope is extinguished’: CBD patients respond to Salt Path...

The real Salt Path | The Observer (The Slow Newscast)

(Live/online event)

The Observer YouTube Channel: The Observer UK - YouTube

Raynor Winn/Sally Walker's statement: Raynor Winn

Thread One ^www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/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: 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: 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?

Thread 14: www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5388981-thread-14-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 get the background from at least some of the Observer items above before posting. There are currently a number of 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. Remember, even Hollywood rabbits attract the odd flea. 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 fourteen 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.

#Pinchofsaltpath
#Fudge
#Cider
#OurChloe
#OurSimon
#Correspondents
#Salray
#Timmoth
#MistakesWereMade
#EmbellishedBollox
#JustBollox
#DriveByScolding
#Glumwashing
#ThereBeSharks
#Scones
#NakedHikers
#TurquoiseGString
#BudleighSalterton
#SallyForth
#YesItReallyIsThread15
#Rabbits

Keep to the path. No saltiness. May the fudge be with you.

Ah! Important clue, that. Yes, i reckon he's a Tyke. I'm still guessing M62 corridor and narrowing it down to West Yorkshire, while all the time wondering why I am bothering because it's clear that SW/RW can't write accents consistently & the whole thing might be made up anyway.

Unbelievably, the dolphins are attributed a clotted cream accent.

The Wise, Old Soothsayer of the Peregrine has something like a clotted cream ball, instead of a fur ball?

My instinct to avoid this work of non-fiction has proved to be correct ....

Weeeeel ah can't say tht our daaave n juwli wd bi from Saauth yeooorksheeeer, chuffin ell as laaahk cuz they duuunt speak proper laaahk ere in godzoun coountry.

(Reverting back to something closer to RP with the mildest of Yorkshire twangs) Goodness it's difficult to work out just how many vowels, and which ones, to write into an attempted phonetic transliteration of local accent (thanose). Corrections welcome!

(No ee bah gum or sithee round here)

To me they feel very ‘Dawn & Pete’ out walking / Gavin & Stacey.

In LL I think SW says Lancashire, not far off the M6. But careful not to be at all specific about where they live, whether it’s in a town or village, or very rural, and to be very unspecific about where they go for a walk while staying with them in Landlines, other than specifying an area of intensive agriculture that has planning for ‘thousands of houses’ nearby.

But deeply hand wavy and non-specific.

When they part ways at Haltwhistle Station in LL, Dave and Julie head off west

But let's face it, we can't believe a thing that SW says or writes. "Dave" and "Julie" from oop North might actually, if the exist, be Tristan and Camilla from the Cotswolds.

Stand corrected, me - see my post above - he's from the wrong side of the Pennines after all! (Takes cover in a Yorkshire sort of way)

I would so love to see what PRH are up to with book 4. I imagine they are scrabbling about inserting bits that echo the latest consultant's letter ( although the walk in book 4 was done before the 2025 letter). Yet the book 4 blurb has Moth's deline at its heart again. There must be meetings taking place saying " if only we hadn't released that blurb, drats".

In LL it does indeed say a few miles west of the M^. The house is on an estuary, near mudflats and a huge housing development is expected to take place.and is quite near Lancaster

Shipped to 4 countries could be England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales.

But tbf 4 isn't huge amounts. At a similar time I scripted a book from WWII, which has a small fan covering, to be performed by a local youth group. We filmed it, and I mentioned this on the FB group, which had around 5-600 members. The fan group is heavily biased to the UK - it was published in the USA but never took off there.
It was not advertised further than this group.

I sold around 120 copes of the DVD and shipped to 8 different countries, if you include the ones above.

Major plans for thousands of homes, Bailrigg Garden Village and M6 overhaul to reshape Lancaster supported

Well yes. My mum has an interesting story to tell and used to give talks to local groups, and sold a few hundred copies of a book she wrote about the subject, just to the groups she'd addressed.

I honestly think they’re waiting and seeing at this point, still. What, if anything, might still emerge? Is the Raynor Winn brand too compromised, or will readers still buy another book? How will that sit with their own reputation as publishers? Can they afford to factcheck literally everything, including ‘The sky was blue’ and ‘The sun rose in the morning’) and, if so, what is the potential for reputational damage if that (as seems inevitable) exposes gaps in due diligence for previous books? And do they keep the previous three in print? With forewords from SW? But what would she say in those if she maintains she’s done nothing wrong?

And a lot will depend on whether SW even wants to engage in another book, especially if it involves either a whole new mea culpa book, or significant rewrites to OWH as it currently is, or if it’s published as is but with a lengthy postscript or intro addressing the Observer stories (as has been the case with subsequent editions of contested non-fiction books like Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air).

Though I was just reading an Instagram post from BBC Wales (the filmed interview with the Hemmings’ daughter) and a fair few comments either suggested not much knowledge of the Observer allegations, accusations of a witch hunt, people saying ‘Well, if she paid the Hemmings back, what’s all the fuss?’ and ‘Well, it’s still a great book’. So perfectly possible in theory that enough readers would buy another RW book just because they like the formula, regardless of what she’s alleged to have lied about.

PRH have some delicate decisions to make.

The Government facing high levels of economic inactivity and increasing benefit bills push the narrative that unwell people can get better if they tried hard enough; ie better diet, increased exercise. Sally’s redemptive memoir struck a chord by suggesting terminally ill people can reverse the symptoms by exercise. This reverses the expectation that the collective support of society should help ill people.
My wife suffered a horrible 5 year battle with breast cancer and all the treatment failed, what’s unforgivable about TSP is that if only we walked a coastal path she would still be here. I’m not doubting that her husband Tim is unwell but to deliberately confuse his diagnosis for financial gain is so cruel.

I reckon there is a fair chance that Dave and Julie live somewhere in the Galgate/Scotforth and Hala triangle south west of Lancaster.

I am so sorry to hear about your wife @Tryingtoeatcake I don't think the general readers who still think it's a good read, can surely realise the distress this book has caused to people ill themselves or caring for a loved one.

Now then (traditional Yorkshire greeting) - I live in North Yorkshire, but am unwilling to take on the post of Northern Correspondent, since I already wear the twin hats of Writing Correspondent (one half) and Nudism Correspondent (Budleigh Salterton Division). I'm also in line for Simon Armitage Carrying Correspondent (Headless Section), so I think I'll leave the Northern bit to someone else. Also, wasn't born here, so cannot be Truly Authoratative In A Northern Way.

Plus it's North Yorkshire, and I always assumed Dave was West Yorkshire and we're not allowed to talk to them.

@SunlitUpland contested non-fiction books like Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air

Thanks, I didn't know about this. It reminded me of the docudrama of Touching the Void - which I thought was very good. Joe Simpson wrote the book to address the criticism of his climbing partner, the end of the film had criticisms of Yates - so yes different viewpoints, and quite circular.

I think the above are well documented tragedies, though, Now the tragic backstories have been questioned, the walk did not happen when she says, they did not complete it - as she says - TSP doesn't have much to offer?

He was great as Cary Grant. Maybe Gillian Anderson is a more perceptive person than J Isaacs: she has seen below the surface of SalRay. Bet she's glad she didn't buy the rights to the film now. If it isn't released in the USA it won't make as much money as anticipated.

'Ey up from a fellow naturalised-Yorkshireperson. I'm in West Yorkshire. But all Yorkshire, aren't we? Apart from Dave, who now turns out to be from the other side of the Pennines... (And I'm the cricket correspondent. Of course).

You see, you demonstrate your foreignness by using the 'ey up' greeting. Here it is a stern address of 'now then,' leaving you quaking in your boots while you wait to find out what you are about to receive a drive-by scolding for. We do not 'eh up' round here.

And do not get me started on 'hast tha got a pen, then?'

I’m told by a North Yorkshireman that only three of the Yorkshire counties are proper, because there were only ever three Ridings of Yorkshire. I can never remember which is the interloper, whether it’s West or South. Or indeed East. Anyone?

Now then? What's up wi' you lot? Mouth full of plums?

It's Nahden round here!