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.

I think it's post-walk. This isn't Golden Cap trig as described in TSP. No idea where this is.

Like SW poisoning TW and then saying 'See? I TOLD you he was ill, haters!'

I mean, I shouldn't laugh, but it would definitely be tactically helpful if SW foraged some dubious mushrooms, as long as she didn't buy and dump a dehydrator and actually ate some of them herself, enough to get slightly ill...

I agree. Also, they probably consider themselves celebrities now–with a film based on their life, successfull book, music tour, money rolling in, etc They probably feel they deserve and can afford much nicer places to live than their run down property in France. Their choice now to live at that impressive, way too big for two empty nesters, historic house and property says everything about what kind of place they want to call home, even if its rented.

Definitely sense they got too big for their boots. It is a sad and all too common affliction when status becomes suddenly elevated. She certainly wasn't hiding from the limelight in latter days.

No, I don't know it. Anyone? The planking photo:

How crisis led couple up the coastal path - BBC News

The might live in a more modest property on this estate.

We saw some photos from their IG. The conservatory looked very nice but 'more modest' would still be pretty good!

I think they will brazen it out. Hannah Ingram-Moore style.

Own up. Did anyone else try that planking-balance thing after seeing TW doing it?

In the absence of a local trig point, I tried balancing like that over the arm of a Chesterfield-type sofa and quite surprised myself that I could do it. The key was to get the pivot point right. I was quite glad that when I started to tip forwards the sofa cushions were there just in case I couldn't correct my position in time.

I just called my local trading standards, I have made a complaint of false advertising by Penguin in relation to tsp, the lady I spoke to was very nice and it was relatively easy (had to report to CAB, they collect the info and pass it on) if a great number of people report them, trading standards might investigate, if it's just me, I don't think so :)

I'm too scared at the moment to call the specialist unit or relevant health authority, to ask if the consultant who made the 2015 diagnosis has reported to their manager a discrepancy with how a diagnosis they gave in 2015, has been retrofitted by a patient to 2013 and used in a lucrative best seller, I don't think they can say that they are unaware now.

It is interesting that the neurologist from the specialist unit that sees Tim, we don't know if he is Tim's neurologist, the review he wrote about TSP for his medical publication, is now missing, you can't link to it, still available on the salt path Wikipedia page, he described it as a feel good read for clinicians, I'm glad someone feels good about it :)

@SeaCampion - thank you for sharing your experience! But do you know where he is? I know it isn't Zennor - it looks more like Scotland?

Or the fraudster who won Who Wants to be a Millionaire (also called Ingram!)

Where is Who Wants to Be a Millionaire's 'coughing Major' Charles Ingram now? | HELLO!

@SunlitUpland The emergency homeless accommodation can be rough but that's what is offered to a lot of people who have to make the best of it. I'd been in mental institutions for a long time and we're not all badly-behaved. Being out on the streets is incredibly dangerous.

I think the WalkerWinns would have had a good case for a flat. However, SalRay doesn't say much or anything about the roughness of emergency accommodation, it's really about the gossip she didn't want to face. Of course in reality she didn't want to be in the area where she stole the money.

I didn't know that they may be living in a smaller property on the estate, I thought it was reported they live in the big house. My mistake.

The review was removed post haste following the Observer exposé. But still can be seen by putting the link in archive.org as well as the Spring 2020 edition .pdf on the ACNR website.

Gosh, I don't think that at all. I think SW considers them unfairly accused and that everyone else is a pack of meanies 'pouring vitriol' on her and saying TW made up his diagnosis, in much the same way as pretty much everyone they meet in TSP is either unthinkingly chomping down cream teas and three-course meals, or actively dragging their dogs and children away in case homelessness is catching. I mean, they can afford to rent somewhere that's bigger and more impressive than they strictly need, because they now have the money to do so.

@TheBrandyPath I've no idea. It doesn't look like anywhere I remember from the part of the SWCP I walked. I did vaguely wonder about the Western Lakes.

I have just found a website that shows all trig points in the UK. https://trigbagging.co.uk/trig-pillar-map/ Who'd have thought that trigbagging was a thing? I bet the answer is on that website somewhere!

ETA link to TBP

@Freshsocks, where are you getting your information from that doctors are required to report patients 'misusing' a diagnosis?

It's interesting how some crimes seem to be glamourised like art theft and the coughing major who became a celebrity of sorts for a while. Not so embezzlement though - it can't be glamourised. It's a grubby crime.

I just called my local trading standards, I have made a complaint of false advertising by Penguin in relation to tsp.

I understand why you reported Penguin to trading standards, and I have since also thought about doing this, but I’m reluctant to because I don’t know how much Penguin knew when they acquired TSP and started selling it (ie did they know about the embezzlement,
or not?)

With the caveat that I’m not a lawyer and I have no experience in this area, I’m not sure Penguin can be accused of false advertising if they didn’t know about the embezzlement.

@BlueHorses I googled, what should a UK consultant do if a patient is misusing a diagnosis, it will lead you to info including the general medical council :) @Fandango52 I don't know if reporting them to trading standards will do any good at all, the book was advertised as a true story, they can argue that they believed it was true, but even if they get asked questions and have to look at the checks they make in the future, that has to be something, I'm a little person and I can do no more.

No. I am the same as you. I remembered the photos and it looked lovely.

I do know around there quite well. The beach is not private at all - it is just owned by the estate. There are other estates nearby where you can walk around, also NT and permissive paths.

I will be amazed in Penguin knew about the embezzlement. I assume they didn’t know that a crime was the reason the Walkers ended up losing their home. I don’t work in publishing but I assume SW signed a contract to state the book was factually accurate.

my take on reading TSP was that the walkers had made a terrible business decision and that led to the repossession and the blaming of a lifelong friend was because they take zero responsibility, and would have blamed others for giving bad advice. Tbh no one i know who’s read it suspected criminal behaviour. I know friends of mine felt the same as me - that SW was embarrassed and stubborn and just couldn’t admit they’d made bad decisions.

he described it as a feel good read for clinicians

While it's always good to read about someone recovering from illness, I don't see how it's a feel-good read for clinicians at all. Lessons for clinicians from TSP, for me, would be:

1 You're insensitive (sitting there on the corner of your desk delivering bad news)
2 What you do doesn't work. You may as well send all your patients off on walks and quit your job.
3 We can't explain how the healing power of the walks works either, and it doesn't make sense even in the books, so don't imagine you can research that and start delivering it as a cure either.
4 Everything your training and the scientific methods has taught you is irrelevant cos NATURE.

What's feel-good about that?

@PullTheBricksDown Yes, in the interview with the Australian host she said:

"we knew then that what that walk had done to him, was something that the medical professionals said wasn't possible"