Thread 16: 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

More from The Observer:
‘Hope is extinguished’: CBD patients respond to Salt Path...
The real Salt Path | The Observer (The Slow Newscast)
I will link to two more Observer videos in the first post of this thread.

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 fifteen 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.

Yes, it really is Thread 16.

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

Well of course he does, she’s worried sick that her husband is terminally ill!

Non-professional body language analysis. How many times did SalRay shake her head from ("No") during this video describing their story? Very interesting.

It's from a google search in Flemish (Der Zoutpad) which links to an article in a magazine called Nieuwsblad published on 7 July 2025 in the wake of CH's Observer revelations. The photo doesn't appear in the article itself somewhat strangely!

sorry dutch not flemish!

The Dutch have a dry sense of humour!

Indeed. Another thing that I've noticed is that in every interview when SW is talking about the long standing financial dispute Cooper she describes him as a lifelong friend. But the intonation is very odd - rising on life and falling on long. Maybe it is a Staffordshire accent, but its always struck me a bit odd.

It definitely does..it's so strange.
She speaks about what happens in the book almost as if it has no relation to what she and her husband experienced in real life..even the tenses she uses.

To give SW a pass maybe someone else wrote the script for her.

I noticed the shaking of the head repeatedly too.

It would be fascinating to have an expert's view although I know body language analysis isn't infallible.

The conclusion to this article shows how it makes a difference to readers that the book/film is true:

Still, while The Salt Path may appear as a slightly on-the-nose, inspirational, self-help film, it is a true story. If it were fiction, that optimism might be at risk of being called naïve. But when Moth, who stops taking his medicine, is in some other, older sense ‘healed’ by nature, his once-shaking hands now able to brandish the tent over his head in one of the film’s most beautiful, backlit shots, it’s not just a convenient character arc – it’s real. Defying his diagnosis, Moth Winn is still alive today. There is something that feels rare, in today’s climate, about this hopeful ending to a true story.

Two people and a path: The Salt Path in review – The Oxford Student

He is a natural in front of a camera. He could have a career as a mature model.

In the line up of the four of them, to promote the film, he is the magnet. This is also very interesting ....

from the peripeteia of suddenly losing everything - that's an expression you don't come across everyday!

No, but it is surprisingly apt:

a sudden reversal of fortune or change in circumstances, especially in reference to fictional narrative

Moth has something of the aging New Wave Romantic about him. The post wedding photo on Skye kind of suggested Sting meets Lesley Judd (of Blue Peter fame)

He has an extraordinary confidence looking straight at the camera.

No wonder Jason fell for him.

If he wasn't one, I'll eat my carefully hilted pillbox hat (I was a card carrying New Romantic and can spot the signs 😎)

ETA and yes, camera loves him and he's very confident in front of them.

Well, if Moth is labouring under the delusion that all poets are Irish (because he carries about Heaney’s Beowulf translation, though whether he always brings this on camping trips, as SW claims in TSP, or whether it happened to be the book he had in his hand when his daughter just told him to walk out of the house with whatever he was carrying, is another of the many mysteries), it perhaps explains why neither of them appear to have heard of SA.

Though something tells me that, if asked, Moth would not display much familiarity with the work of Paula Meehan, Medbh McGuckian or Paul Muldoon.

I think the tweed shorts also have a slight Sound of Music lederhosen look.

Gosh, that video was a very uncomfortable watch. Salray is so ill at ease in front of a camera, and very bad indeed at lifting words off a page/prompter (which I assume she’s doing, hence the strange off-centre eyeline, and the fact she’s wearing her glasses to read properly). Also the weirdly chirpy conjunction of 'hi!' and 'my husband Moth was diagnosed with a terminal illness!'

I learned the other day that an inability to pronounce the letter L, thereby necessitating the substitution of other sounds - which is especially noticeable in that video - is called 'lambdacism' (apologies if that’s been mentioned before; I haven’t quite kept up with all 16 threads!). You couldn’t really choose a more awkward title to pronounce than 'Land Lines'.

Indeed. I have commented on it before (with some reservation, as it felt a bit mean to point out the speech impediment) YET I wondered if it was one of the reasons she didn’t like the name Sally - and there are some very difficult moments in the audiobooks where - if I were her - I’d have changed the words or phrases just to avoid sounding completely unintelligible. For example “electric blue damselfly” and “curlew” - very hard for her to say. Or just got someone else to narrate the books.

Agreed. I think she's actually reading from a prompt just off centre. I really struggled to listen to this. She's really went to to town on the whole nature and walking curing Moth in LL ( which I've not read). Beyond the deceit of medical claims, what I find particularly irritating is how she's effectively hijacked nature, the sense of belonging to it, ancient pathways and people to serve her narrative. I can't quite put my finger on why this irritates me so much other than I recognise what she talks about when walking long distances but I can't relate to her at all because of the facade and the falsehoods. It's very jarring and an insult to those who love nature and walking.

Was the video linked to in the Dutch article? If not, how did you find it as it's unlisted?
I wondered whether Penguin chose not to list it publicly if it comes across so badly? It only had a few hundred views (last night)

Thanks for my new word of the day! Can #peripeteia be added to the list of useful hashtags?

Also, about TW carrying Beowulf around, we only know that it's Beowulf from the cover. It might be a disguise to cover other reading material of a similar size, a bit like those Kindle covers made to look like you're reading a classic work of fiction.

Yes the video was linked to the Dutch article

@SimoArmo what I find particularly irritating is how she's effectively hijacked nature, the sense of belonging to it, ancient pathways and people to serve her narrative. I can't quite put my finger on why this irritates me so much

This was my position re: what she calls "the Path". She has appropriated, and clung to it, as the third character, the three of them together.

This coupled with her indignation and dismissive attitude towards 'tourists'. She is talking about our, mostly respectful, welcome visitors.

"but rather than give in" - SalRay.

It's curious that this was rarely or ever commented on; in fact it's repeated by others in reviews etc. Why is looking after yourself when ill 'giving in'? If anything it's more responsible than going on a hazardous trek that could lead to injury or death. As others have noted, it's implying that those who don't recover ('gave in') didn't try hard enough and are responsible for their declining health. This adds to the anti-disability beliefs seen in the past decade or so in Britain and it's really an anti- science, anti-medicine view. Seen in the pandemic too.

Strange that so many in the media went along with this and, as far as I know, didn't say to SalRay: "wasn't that risky with your husband so ill?" A neurological condition could have easily led to Timoth losing his balance on the more precarious stretches of the path.