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’ve said before that I can’t see how she can do any public events now such as literary festivals. Too many awkward questions and a v high chance of one or more of the Observer interviewees or friends/family turning up. If the latest book comes out it’ll be the equivalent of a straight to video film <shows age> , bought by devotees and the curious, but not many others. She’s now one of those people like James Frey & J T Leroy who will forever feature on lists of famous literary scandals. It reminds me of the scene in ‘Notting Hill’ where Julia Roberts’ character explains to-the Hugh Grant character that the story of her early nude photos will forever be on file…..

Going back to the degree course TW did, it sounded to me like a combined HND/BSc where you have to pass x number of credits to get the degree but y credits to exit with an HND instead. A number of undergraduate Masters degrees work on a similar basis, where you enrol on the lower qualification and then progress on to the higher one all being well. So you apply for a student loan for the full potential degree period but can amend it if need be.

Sorry I had missed he'd started in 90s..I misread as early 2000s until 2007 and some voluntary. Ignore my timeline.

As @Catwith69lives says the demise seems very related to his job loss/ French property and I'd like to add in credit card debt as stated threads ago. And ties in. Which I'm sorry does add up to the theft of money/fraud being a joint enterprise committed by SW for their family.

I'm just the start of 20+ years of lies that continues to 2025.

Hurrying along the path to catch up with you all on thread 15!

Taking that last £600 was stupid but to me it reads like the kind of enhanced recklessness you see from criminals who've got away with what they're doing for ages. They either subconsciously want to get caught, or (and I think in RW's case) believe those around them are just too dim to realise.

DISCLAIMER to any drive-by scolders - this next bit is not me likening the WWs or what they've done to serial killers

In this sense only, it's like someone such as Harold Shipman who got increasingly careless after his first hundred or so victims and then started amending their wills in his favour which is what drew suspicion. Likewise RW decided she just didn't need to be as careful anymore.

I’m not sure it’s any clearer whether she acts alone, or he is the secret power behind the throne.
Is he putting her up to it overtly, or does he sit back and “allow” her to think she’s making the decisions? Does she do it to try and keep a hold of him, or at his behest, or without his knowledge?

The big red flags for me are - TimMoth told rich uncle SalRay had taken money from work and had “taken out 4 credit cards in my name” and TimMoth told Bill Cider Farm he only had 2 months to live.

There is apparently no evidence of any investment by TW into a half uncle (aka Cooper)'s company that subsequently went bust.

Nor any evidence that Cooper was a childhood friend whom TW used to trike/bike around with.

However, there is solid evidence that TW did invest/buy a property in France adjacent to somebody he probably used to bike/trike around with - aka his younger brother M, who may have subsequently let him down, and created a family rift.

Re degree: yes, you are right. I looked at it a bit more closely earlier and it can be persued as an HNC (one year), HND (two years) and BSc (three years), with students being able to decide, pending exam/coursework results, to continue on to the next level. I also noticed on the uni webpage that school qualifications aren't necessarily required to do the course if one has relevant experience.

End of 2007 early 2008 was peak banking crisis and peak of interest rates (source my memory backed up by quick Google search and bank of england) also difficult to remortage and sell property etc get new loans Also a lot of job losses (although that was more in cities I thought..would impact estate agencies though).

So it's buying something in France as crash happened I think by the dates stated (I've got that wrong already though!). Would create even more family financial pressures...Would also make takings in estate agency less so fraud more obvious - so could be either or both.

An alternative idea…

What if the investment into property was France? Maybe Tim encouraged the brother to move there, said they would build a place and Tim would do all the work, plastering, make some holiday rentals which Sal will manage, talks about it for a year or two, scope out areas etc then the brother moves and then…Tim starts dragging his feet. SalRay starts having to “scrimp and save” aka embezzle, to buy the adjacent land.

The bother gets fed up waiting for Tim to get out there and do work, and buys a more suitable local chateaux and the brothers fall out.

The worthless land is still worthless, but now they’re up to their necks in remortgages, embezzlement loans and unemployment…

As my OP I think this fits with also external financial factors..plus a lot of keeping up with the Jones aspirations.

Thanks, @SimoArmo. I work in the sector so have seen that type of structured progression before.

If you look at the Escape to the Country vid of Pen-y-Maes vs the bramble infested roofless wreck in the back of beyond in VDP (aka La France profonde) and the children firmly ensconced in the UK, I'm not sure a move to France in 2007 was necessarily a 'no brainer'.

I don't get the sense in TSP,TWS and LL that Raymoth had a strong affinity to France.

@RejoinedbecauseofTSPthreads you have said a few things I’ve suggested in previous threads. I’m very suspicious of Timmoth; someone early on said that JI described him as charismatic, and had fallen for his charms- IME people like that can be very manipulative and Salray seems to have grown up in a household where she was often made to be in the wrong. I see that as a recipe for her to be manipulated throughout their marriage, even more as she is so open about practically worshipping him and with a side order of fear of losing him: in TSP it talks about the loss of their sex life and then in the Grant episode she’s all ‘I wouldn’t blame you, but why don’t you fancy me any more?’ And sad rather than angry and LTB.
pauses to breathe

So yes, I see the same sort of things as you. His expensive taste in clothes, probably translating into expensive tastes in homes and keeping up with the Joneses (or maybe the other Walkers). The fact that he gives the consultant all these different symptoms and he told the cider landlord that he’d only got a couple of months to live, and told JI something else about his symptoms, I don’t remember what- but anyway, I wonder if he goes through life like some sort of wrecking ball, buying things, making up stories, and she’s there behind him just putting out fires (and trying to keep up with him so that he doesn’t lose interest in her and leave her for someone new). And that’s why he’s not allowed to be there when she is talking to the press, because he won’t stick to the script. Or maybe I’ve read too many tales of woe on Mumsnet!

@Catwith69lives I don't get the sense in TSP,TWS and LL that Raymoth had a strong affinity to France.

In another life we had been passengers on that ferry, sailing overnight to Santander in northern Spain. The children were small, we were in our early thirties and life appeared to be falling into place.

Totally agree - jeopardy must surely be too much of a potential risk for any festival organiser.

One aspect that I don't think has been fully examined is the Walker clan and their involvement in the saga:

I think trying to involve them in Sally and Tim's dealings would be unfair to them. No one anywhere has suggested they're involved in any way, and anything else is speculation about innocent people who didn't ask to be associated with this.

Nailed it IMHO!

But

Isn't it lucky for him she's such a bloody good writer (she can write well even if its tropes, plagiarised and fictionalised...). She's also great at fraud and deception playing the media and picking herself up and starting over.

As 'fraud correspondant' (humbled I've made the team..) I'm always really really sad that people with such amazing talents and strengths don't use them for good. Usually in my line of work they do believe the good they do via their work excuses the bad self interest fraud stuff. It's such a double edged sword.

I'm sorry to say for me I'm with OP. That's where I want any future investigating to go. Isn't it great for him he's really unwell so essentially untouchable.

I don't actually want a witch hunt though.

Maybe the middle-class aspirational holiday- life falling into place, barefoot children running around the ancient home you’re restoring, back to nature, land and pet sheep- rather than actually being interested in the country? When did that A Year In Provence come out? Maybe that sort of book made the romance of that lifestyle an appealing fantasy.

Full disclosure- I sometimes get an irresistible urge to buy something which my brain has made up a story about how it’ll make my life perfect. (Well, difficult to resist. I can but I have to really try.) if I buy it I can guarantee that buyer’s remorse will arrive soon after I can’t go back. Maybe the Walkers have a similar affliction? Although mine usually stops at notebooks, shoes, coats, that sort of thing; I’ve never impulse-bought a house in any country.

I have wondered whether he has her under coercive control with the situation that if she tries challenging him his symptoms "play up" which stops her.

Nothing to go on except just the way she talks about him in that hero-worship way though.

The children may well be blameless but TW's siblings and wider family have clearly been aware of and have been minor players in the saga. No one is holding them to blame for what occurred but if Raymoth sofa surfed with them for short or prolonged periods of times, then they form part (even if innocent) of the story and must surely have more than an inkling of what actually occurred.

It was one of the nephews who went on the record by thanking CH for having outed his uncle and aunt as " pathological liars who leave a trail of destruction in their wake". He volunteered this info on LI without any hounding by journalists.

Yes! Makes me think they did something which caused his parents a lot of grief; and he says it of both of them.

Families are complicated. There's only everyone's own truth.. e.g 'it was your fault we bought that wreck' versus ' we were trying to help you/support you and you didn't do xyz'
Old roles perpetuated
Maybe even a reason why they couldn't stay with parents post repossession. Family rift.
Families don't get on. Often. Living up the road is not a guarantee they're close.
Nephew will have story through parents/grandparents lense.
We can all relate

As @Catwith69lives said, of course they all knew the truth or degrees of it. Maybe not everything. But don't we all have relatives like this. I know I do. I've got a set of flash with cash relatives who've made a lot of questionable decisions but my facts on them come largely through the lense of my own parents so not reliable or impartial.

It's not fair to drag them into it.

I don't know if it is my imagination (I have to use it when looking at TSP as I find it boring) but there is a scene that interests me.

It is when Aphrodite arises from the sea foam and stands there dripping to the emasculation of the men.

A group of divers squelched up from the beach......... The one nearest the shack peeled off the drysuit to reveal another, very feminine-shaped wetsuit underneath, removing her neoprene balaclava to set her long dark hair free in the rising wind. As she struggled to release herself from the black, body-hugging skin, the elderly fishermen on the next table fell silent. By the time she finally rolled it down over her thighs to reveal a perfect body in a red bikini, they were close to slithering from the bench in a state of self-transcendent ecstasy.

This is actually one of the things covert 'victim' narcs do in codependent relationships.

I'm still not convinced by this "she must have been desperate" theory. Taking that cash was a stupid move, but even before that (according to Ros Hemmings) she was faking Martin Hemmings' signature on cheques, which she then used to pay for her personal shopping. By that point she'd been running the embezzlement for years; I think she'd become convinced that she'd never be caught, and got increasingly careless.

How did SW personally benefit from the 60k she stole?

Unless she had a gambling, business or drug habit to support that she'd individually run up, then it could have only been to finance her families outgoings.

It is a lot of additional money.

If my DH had stolen from colleague friend who had given them a job im not sure I'd have readily forgiven that.

Also possible/probable his parents were not happy with their actions if it was widely known locally (where they also lived). They're not going to go shouting about it.