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.

@mauvishagain And to whom would the consultant report this?

And to whom would Ros Hemmings report what she knew?

I think this is why it has been good for The Observer to give a voice to some of those who have been stolen from, lied to, misled, slurred, etc....

I have noticed that, more recently, in interviews she goes into detail about 'nature' more than 'walking'.

I had to switch it off, it isn't at all scientific - like the ladybird description.

I think the main emphasis now is about 'being nature'. So they won't have to do anything for the next book, after that.

I agree with this. Controversy is usually good for book sales (all that free advertising!), but not the kind of controversy that paints the author as a very different kind of person than portrayed in the book. I think the books will continue to sell, albeit at a much reduced volume. SW and TW will keep their heads very firmly down for at least the next few years, until this has blown over and they can be sure that they're not going to be held to account for unfounded claims or asked questions that they can't (or won't) answer.

Depending on how much of the earnings from the book they have invested (and they likely won't have earned as much as people think, with their agent and publisher having taken their substantial cuts, plus a hefty tax bill), they can sit tight for a while. But if the book earnings plummet, as they are likely to do, they are going to have to go back to 'reduced circumstances'. All the peripheral earnings that tend to make money as a book drops back in the ratings - the teaching gigs, the festivals, the talks and, more importantly the FUTURE books - will be pulled. Most authors depend on the new and forthcoming books to sell their backlist and rejuvenate interest, and I don't think they will have this. The new book will probably slide out, unfanfared and then the Walkers will be quietly let drop by PRH.

So I hope they've got plenty of money stashed away somewhere.

Oh god, I shudder at the mere thought of a doctor talking to a journo without permission - he'd barely have put the phone down before he found himself up before the GMC and struck off!

I don't think that people who are not medical always understand just how extremely serious and sacrosanct this is; it's drummed into us from day 1 as undergraduates and the consequences for a doctor who gets this wrong can be life-changing in all the wrong ways.

I am torn between hoping there will be a big live event / interview so we can see how SW/RW manages when she can't just operate inside the book world... and knowing that SW/RW would get a lot of money for it if there was.

The interviews / live events have really started to intrigued me as this thread has progressed. Surely somebody, sometimes, before this must have asked her basic softball questions like "we all know life is messier than what's on the page, how do you decide when it's acceptable to change the story for dramatic purposes?"

I suspect that, if this happened, she turned the conversation back to the prepared script with something like 'yes, real life is VERY messy - when Moth was diagnosed we really didn't know how we would cope which is how we ended up doing this walk....' and then back on to carefully scripted anecdotes.

So it seems that now the cat is out of the bag, any follow up story by CH such as tracking down Polly/Dave and Julie, isn't really going to move the dial much.

As Raymoth seem pretty unlikely to do a mea culpa interview in a desperate attempt to hang on to SW's literary career, does that mean the controversy just fades away apart from occasional sightings of Raymoth on the SWCP in years to come?

I think that would be their best move. Maybe a haircut apiece, so that they don't get recognised and move to living a very quiet and blameless life. It must have affected both of them quite severely, all this coming out. They will still have their supporters of course, but I think the majority decision is that they are a pair of proper grifters, and they can't be sure that the public aren't coming for blood, so if I were them I would stay very very quiet from now on.

Is there a book to be written about them along the lines of Michael Crick's biography of Jeffrey Archer (Stranger than Fiction)

Jeffrey Archer: Stranger than Fiction: Amazon.co.uk: Crick, Michael: 9781841154657: Books

These posts can sometimes be misunderstood.

To be clear, what you have reacted to, didn't cross my mind.

I was being purely positive about the people who have now been given a voice - that did not have one.

It does make me realise though - how powerful it is that the doctor, The Observer featured, was there with his name, photo, and gave us a clear explanation. I appreciate his contribution.

I think they will lie low for a while and later write a “ Truth about the salt path” book.

There could well be, but I don't think it will be an 'authorised' one! I suspect it might have to wait a few years, maybe even until Sally and Tim are gone, because I think they will take legal action to stop anything coming out until then. And don't ask me to write it, I'm strictly fiction!

Any investigations written about the affair would do well to dwell more on the publishing angle rather than character assassinations. Give it a few years and public sympathies may well swing back to favour the Walkers.

You're probably right. Though I would be interested to hear from someone who's been on one of her life-writing courses (am I right in thinking she already ran some of those, they weren't just planned for this year & then cancelled?) - that must be a context in which you can't avoid questions about the fact/fiction boundary.

Coincidentally while enjoying this thread I've been writing a little piece for friends & family about something that happened to me, & been struck by just how difficult it is to be truthful /accurate when you're relying on your memory of emotionally loaded events. And hence more and more struck by RW/SW never even admitting that it's difficult (presumably because she wasn't too bothered about the "truthful / accurate" bit).

But when I am teaching, I'm concentrating on the writing of my students rather than talking about my own writing - so I assume this is what she did in these cases.So if someone asked her during the course of a life writing lesson about how to decide what to change for dramatic purposes, she could answer in a very 'general' way about 'making the narrative readable, immediate and enjoyable' (or some other such words which anyone can make applicable to their own situations).

Teaching is about the mechanics, rather than specifics, so it's quite easy to avoid 'how did you...?' questions because you can turn it around to your students and ask them 'how would YOU...?'

It's how people who've never written a published word can still be teachers of creative writing.

Ros Hemmings (Hemings? I look it up all the time and mow have a mental block) is in a completely different position to a doctor with a duty of confidentiality built into the ethical framework of his/her profession, though.

SW has been to see the film 5 times apparently!

Video | Facebook

@cricketandwhodunnits And hence more and more struck by RW/SW never even admitting that it's difficult (presumably because she wasn't too bothered about the "truthful / accurate" bit).

Yes, I agree. If you tend to being more 'detached from the truth' it must be much easier to write.

I have noticed, for myself, that it is very easy to conflate experiences, exaggerate, bring out your own strong themes. Even without going into how you 'feel', and other more personal recollections.

On this thread, we are dealing with a total delusion, I feel.

It would be quicker to list all the things that are authentic and accurate in TSP?

Makes me want to go to one of your classes! (I'm an author of the boring academic kind; as a child I used to dream of being a Proper Writer who writes books they sell in normal bookshops, but, as with RW/SW life took a different turn...!)

From what I remember (and this is just vaguely based on my memory of browsing the Arvon website a while back because a friend who’d taught a couple of their residential weeks had had a poor experience of their admin), she was scheduled to teach one or two online day courses on nature writing. At least one was scheduled (from what I remember) for after the Observer story.

I’m not sure that public sympathy is so entirely against them, even now, though. I think a lot of people, even readers who enjoyed TSP, either don’t know about the Observer stories, or don’t much care.

TSP happened to come up at a gathering I was at last week, mostly friends and relatives of a friend I was visiting, and five people (all educated, reasonably media-literate women in their 40s and 50s) had read it. Of those, only two were vaguely aware there had been some kind of controversy, and neither had actually read the Observer story or any of the places it’s been retold. One said ‘Sounds fascinating’ and was going to look it up, but the other clearly didn’t want to hear anything that would destroy her enjoyment of a book she said she’d loved.

I have yet to meet a writing course where the admin ISN'T pretty rubbish. I was supposed to be teaching at Swanwick this year but the team changed and I was dropped without ceremony because they wanted to 'go in a different direction'. Huh.

If you write about cricket .... However, if it is The Odyssey - I might be interested.

I have always been a novel reader. Increasingly I have been turning to non-fiction. Recent fiction has been leaving me as if I have just eaten half a meal.

I have been stunned by the uplifting quality of some more 'dry' subjects. I read a piece about Anglo-Saxon art and was so impressed. There are a couple of women academics who write wonderfully about this subject.

In May, the Daily Mail ran an article in which they describe TSP as a "homelessness memoir" and it also says Gillian Anderson met with some people from The Big Issue. The BI should know that homelessness doesn't happen the way it's depicted by SalRay. It's astonishing how many got so caught up in this story and that journalists didn't ask pertinent questions - such as 'what would it matter if there was gossip about you being in council accommodation, your husband was very ill and needed shelter?'. Or 'don't you think it was dangerous to take such a sick man up a steep path where he could come to harm?'

The WalkerWinns have been incredibly lucky to have their publisher push the book so hard and in the way most reviewers and journalists failed to do their jobs properly.

Yes, that’s true, but it worked for the following three books (if we include the upcoming book 4) and it’s also just quite a funny way to think about it, isn’t it 😂

I suspect that the journalists might well have asked the 'right' questions but been met with prevarication or just non-answering. So they won't have bothered to write this up.