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.

It is a business as usual, nothing to see here approach.

I can imagine them sticking their fingers in their ears and singing 'la, la, la' while the accusations fly around them.

Maybe we'll get some more owl photos on their IG feed!

https://www.amazon.co.uk/630-Miles-Braver-Midlifing-South/dp/1068411112
I apologise if this has been posted already.
I can't find much information about her other that she does a lot of motivational speaking etc.
BTW the book was published in April 2025

No idea if this 2020 ABC podcast interview has been shared here before but so hard to keep track. It's as one would expect with RW sticking to the usual script, but the questions are good, even if the interview doesn't get anything new. I only listened to the first 5 or so mins as I find it all so hard to digest now and I've heard the same thing over and over.

www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/conversations/raynor-winn-salt-path-walking-homelessness-illness/12750226

What I did notice is that RW talks about staying at a friend's house while they were holiday for 2 weeks immediately after the eviction, not Moth's non-France brother as per TSP. Seems like an odd thing to not get right. Incidentally, it's quite plausible they did stay with Moth's brother. I discovered he lives about 20ish miles from Pen-y-Maes, as described in TSP. But whether they did stay there is anyone's guess.

But to continue to advertise it as such now they do know?

Together with the question marks about the diagnosis, prognosis and miracle cure health claims, to the point that the charity has parted ways with the author and her husband, and genuine CBD sufferers and specialists have spoken out? The publishers have had a number of weeks now to take note and act on all that to, at the very least, drop the 'unflinchingly honest' claim.

https://headrightout.com/south-west-coast-path-national-trail/
A more realistic account of walking TSWCP

The Salt Path and CBD. Interesting insights from a medical perspective.

What does the fallout from the ‘Salt Path’ saga tell us about our society’s ideas about chronic illness and exercise? – BJGP Life

That brings back memories of the wee small hours of this morning @Catwith69lives when I was in with a DC and we were startled awake by an owl sitting on our bedroom windowsill loudly shrieking and shouting through the open window! S/he has done it from time to time over the years but we never get used to it to the point of it not making us jump. Bloomin' marvellous though too.

Am I not allowed to question if this is ethical?

Yes you are indeed allowed on these threads to question whether something is ethical @Freshsocks .

I actually don't think I am making too much of it to ask these questions, there must be other people who would like to know

Please be assured that you are not and there are.

Civil differences of opinion and questions, from differing personal and professional experiences and perspectives, are all welcome on these threads and always have been.

@SimoArmo It's difficult to listen to Mrs WW with those frequent deep intakes of breath. They sound rather like a respiratory problem but she would probably have talked about that so it's most likely to be an expression of anxiety. The only time she sounds stress-free is when she's talking on the Waterstones YouTube channel about the books she likes.

I thought that exactly about the books she likes. It was so different than the usual cagey referring back to the text.

Previously, I shared a Radio 4 programme about Lying. It said that it was easier for us to detect on the radio than watching someone - which surprised me. So sometimes now, on the videos, I shut my eyes and think!

I live in a hamlet in the middle of the countryside and frequently have to close my bedroom window because of the hooty bastards.

Being woken from a deep sleep by someone shouting 'WOOOOOOO!' right outside your window is absolutely terrifying.

I like the expression too, except I'm not too sure it is sailing on the safe side, especially when then combined with two, potentially three, other books in the series, a major film and numerous claims in interviews publicising the books and film.

I'm not feeling respect towards them at this point either and I think that goes two ways, as they don't seem to be showing respect for their readers and the wider public.

Particularly if that someone is strange Mr Smythe from Rose Cottage in his pyjamas up a ladder.

#Hootybastards

Oh, how I wish the great, and astonishingly perceptive Lynn Barber had been given the opportunity to interview S and T Walker when TSP was first published. There’s no way that Raymoth would have got away with trotting out these pat answers. Always loved Lynn’s interviews - she wasn’t afraid to ask the hard / almost impertinent personal questions that other interviewers might shrink from, and was often fabulously rude about her interviewees. Lynn wasn’t one to follow the herd and I’ve no doubt she would have seen right through Raymoth even when everyone else was fawning over them. Oh, if only!

Given it seems pretty certain Raymoth stopped walking at Land's End and went to Bristol, I wonder why RW chose to pretend they did keep walking, rather than write that section of the journey as part of a longer second leg.

I'm thinking that stopping for winter at Polruan must have been a narrative choice, in which case why there? Possibly because it made a nice circular and serendipitous ending to the narrative, slotting it in to finding a place to live in the place they "finished" walking the full 630 miles.

How they ended up in Polruan in reality could have nothing to do with the walk at all. I suppose only "Anna" would know how it happened. But it all seems too convenient in TSP's version.

@SimoArmo It is a convenient place for Eden and Plymouth - the dual centres of Moth's studies.

Thanks, I now unfortunately have Salray in my head performing Single Ladies in a leotard. 😱

His course was actually based at Cornwall College, St Austell campus, which is also close to Polruan. It seems more likely they found the flat well before they began leg 2, assuming it took place in 2015. Perhaps they had to wait for it to be vacant, which prompted them to walk again. I guess too many unknowns.

I also doubt they would want to live that close to Timmoth's family or to property owned by family if they are estranged or things are strained between them. The posts by the nephew and his wife would strongly suggest they are.

Quite a few posts on social media about how some of their friends had been screwed over by SW,how they didn't want their identity known,perhaps they were embarrassed. I wonder if the owner of the tiny little flat at the back of the chapel is one such person?

Where did you see the posts?

Social media. Mostly Facebook.

That’s a very good point. I might give trading standards a ring in that case.

Yes. I always just assumed that is why it was Polruan.

The other walks I thought could well be then a series of day trips. Mainly because many ferries on the south coast were not mentioned or were incorrect. The photo at Q Adelaide's Grotto being from 2016, etc.