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.

Isn't that near where they meet Grant?

Briefly going back to that Lit Hub piece I do think publishers have a duty of care and integrity to stop pedalling SW type nonsense. But they are targeting mass markets and the masses lap it up as we have seen. I will have no respect for PRH is they proceed with publishing book 4.

This would be the following day. No mention of walking on a beach here. They are in Bude within a couple of short paragraphs.

Thank you for this.

Question now is whether there really was minimal to no editing at all before the book was published (as claimed by Sally) or if Penguin read the original manuscript and asked her to do a rewrite to fill in the template of themes and arcs they wanted to sell.
If no editing was required, had she just written her book based on extensive research of the genre as we all suspect?
The excerpt about the birthing of the lambs is one of the pieces which I liked and related to. I was a young farmer at school. I felt a rapport between myself and those passages. I say passages because I have no idea now if Sally really experienced those thoughts or Raynor did.

@HatStickBoots Question now is whether there really was minimal to no editing at all before the book was published (as claimed by Sally) or if Penguin read the original manuscript and asked her to do a rewrite to fill in the template of themes and arcs they wanted to sell.
If no editing was required, had she just written her book based on extensive research of the genre as we all suspect?

It has been very refreshing to read Polly Atkin's piece today. And how rare that anyone in the literary world has been brave enough to put their head above the parapet.

All the real questions now seem to point back to Penguin.

It's a great piece and thanks for finding it. Polly Atkin is a good writer. Interesting that at long last, a media article actually states that SalRay's memoir is fabricated. There has been a lot of tiptoeing around outright calling the WalkerWinns liars, with comments like "if this turns out to be true." The stealing of £64,000 is undoubtedly a fact as no one would pay back that money if they didn't take it and The Observer would be very careful in their investigation.

One of these fake cancer cures is Gerson therapy which claims that juices and coffee enemas are effective treatments. The fact that this is not scientifically evaluated and has no peer review does not make believers change their minds. As Atkin writes, it's what people want to think and is simplistic. The tragedy is that some patients will refuse chemotherapy which could have saved their lives or given them more time.

One of the more bizarre claims re Moth's illness is that it's only the act of walking long distance that keeps it in check. Hard physical work outside in the fresh air doesn't have the same effect and he actually deteriorates which makes no sense.

This is difficult though. Would we think differently if the words 'unflinchingly honest' had never been used and if TSP and follow ons were just being marketed with the reading public left to make up their own minds as to how truthful the contents were?

Leaving things open to interpretation will attract some readers but won't sell the millions that TSP has.

I think a lot of people would just assume the 'unflinching honesty' - because they want it to be true. I write fiction and have lost track of the number of people who have said 'this bit (of one book) MUST have happened to the author..' No, I can just write convincing scenes.

But I'd feel better about PRH if they didn't continue to pretend that these books were utterly truthful. If they at least acknowledged that facts have been massaged for story purposes.

Being chronically ill or disabled involves a lot of wading through people “knowing” stuff about your situation because there’s so much of it out in the world. Exercise is good, nature is healing, exercising in nature…it’s really, really invalidating because it’s all the time.

We all know there things are generally good and may contribute to wellbeing but if you’re housebound in pain sometimes organising a trip out means not washing for a few days, not sleeping properly from the extra pain, it becomes too high a cost. Disabled people arent on a level playing field. The Literary Hub piece is seminal and needs to be read far and wide - my disability is incurable, no amount of apple cider vinegar can fix me.

I’m actually suprised that SalRay didn’t go for the treble and include “superfoods” she could have started TimMoth on a diet of lightly salted blackberries. Nutritious and truly free of charge. I reckon they probably could cure terminal illness, too /s

Spot the odd one out!

But which one is the Poet Laureate?!

Just been helping teenage son prepare for a big hillwalk tomorrow and it hit me again how extraordinarily and unrealistically irresponsible the behaviour of the characters Raynor and Moth at the start of TSP is... to walk without appropriate clothing, appropriate food or necessary medicine doesn't respect the [mountains] landscape...

But does he have an essential radio hidden away just in case he has the urge to listen to some sport? What's a bit of extra weight for the off chance?

And a copy of an epic poem in case emergency busking is required?

As well as firm instructions to glumwash the whole experience, together with parental permission to forget the usual family morals and avoid paying for anything they need?

Don't forget, he definitely does not need a trowel. He and his wild poos must be completely at one with nature.

Any thoughts about when this photo was taken at the finish of the SWCP in Poole?

Thought I'd post these comments about Raymoth from a criminal psychologist on a FB feed.

Are these 3 photos of Moth (at Constantine Beach with a Chanel T shirt) and somewhere else on the SWCP, both from the 2013 walk? The scout coffee mug is shown in both photos but the hat is different.

The framed AH picture of TSP is clearly v important to SW. Pride of place in the apartment in Polruan as well as her current abode.

To be fair to SW, if any of the shots are to be used as publicity, her publisher might have asked her to put them in prominent spots. Just as if you're doing a Zoom interview, they like you to have a shelf of your books on display as your background. All part of the subliminal advertising machine.

Haha, it's a sponsored charity walk and he & some of the other walkers play in a band... so I guess they could stop and busk if they get bored with walking... if he'd taken his bass guitar!!

@WhoDaresWinns that point about being skilled at manipulation but poor insight in other psychological aspects is very apt for SW.

I wonder what role TW played in the relationship, right from the start. Perhaps the unwavering adoration from S boosted his ego - but he doesn’t seem the sort of person who’d need an ego boost tbh! He does seem to have been strikingly good looking as a young man (going by photos, not just SW’s gushing) so I imagine other women would have been interested.

Then further down the line, was he in on the embezzlement all the way along? My gut feeling is that he wouldn’t have known from the start, but either became aware at some point later or perhaps when she got caught. Actually my gut tells me it was probably at the point she got caught because she was probably able to pass the money she brought in as bonuses, or back pay, or even a loan from kind Martin Hemmings. Would they seriously have both been able to continue being friends with the Hemmings, going for Christmas Day etc, both knowing there was major embezzlement going on.

Did it cross his mind to leave S when the embezzlement came to light? For many couples, finding that out about their partner would be a deal breaker. What kept him being loyal to her?

Just going down a psychology rabbit hole here! It’s quite fascinating to think about the dynamics at play here

"TSP 2: The Poonami"

@cricketandwhodunnits I hope you have kitted out your son and his friends in T shirts with the slogan "I am not Simon Armitage".

I know he's a teenager and SA is 60 odd, but amazing how easily mistakes are made! 😂