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.

I agree that he didn't know. I think it was one of those situations where life is running along smoothly - maybe he's a little surprised at how much they can afford, but perhaps SW is an excellent manager of the household money. Yes of course if he wants they can buy that land in France! And then when it's all found out, maybe the guilt that it was his wife wanting him to be happy, and to buy all the things that he likes and keep all the bills paid while he either studies or works in his gardening job... perhaps that influenced his desire to stay in the relationship?

Honestly I can't see it myself. If anything I think Tim is the mastermind, sending poor little cock-struck/coercion victim/terrified Sally out to do all his dirty work, steal money, type out manuscripts, speak in public even though it seems to leave her on the verge of a panic attack (all that gasping!) while he smugly reaps the rewards, safe in the knowledge that its her fingerprints on all the crimes and misdemeanors. He always looks like the cat that got the cream to me, and Sally looks like the frantically placating mouse, putting on a brave face because she'll be in trouble if she doesn't.

But who knows - not me!

I am not sure of course but wouldn't be entirely surprised if Timmoth didn't know about the embezzlement while it was happening. I can see her trying to give her bit of a dreamer husband everything he wants (as @Vroomfondleswaistcoat describes) because she decades on can't quite believe he's with her. If this were the case, it doesn't absolve him of the responsibility we all have for paying attention to household finances and for not realising their outgoings were outstripping their income.

However, he's certainly complicit in the false narrative about the house loss and around his illness.

funny thing is that the son & his friends probably COULD, if necessary, busk by reciting Simon Armitage's poetry (in authentic West Yorkshire accents). GCSE English is a wonderful thing.

Perhaps if these threads continue long enough we'll find the answers to the fascinating issues raised. It's abundantly clear that the first book of the trilogy, TSP, cannot now be categorised as "non-fiction", so clearly nor can the sequels.
The very few compulsive liars I have come across have practised their deception on a relatively small scale - on "friends and family" that is.
But by becoming a best- selling author SW, playing the role of RW, had the opportunity to reach and deceive a much wider audience (via radio/TV/literary events etc.) and the temptation proved too great to resist. Well that's how I see it.
Is TW's lying merely to fit in with SW's or is his "compulsive" also. If the latter, he may well have been involved right from the start of the criminality.
Looks like we'll have to wait and see! In the meantime I still have to decide whether to speed-read LL or take my copy straight to the charity shop.

I think it’s also fair to say that both of them seem workshy. They clearly show distain towards ordinary 9-5 workers … the sort of people who might be walking some of the SWCP as tourists on annual leave, rather than the ‘authentic’ back to nature people SW and TW believe themselves to be!

When you look at their employment record, TW I think only worked as the gardener at the National Trust property for about 9 years. Presumably the Head Gardener job was full time, but until he got that, he could well have been part time. SW’s work for Martin Hemmings was only part time. I was born just 16 months after SW: it was very normal for women to work even when the children were little back then. And by the time SW started working for the Hemmings, their kids would have been around top end of primary or even in secondary school. Most people wanting or needing more money would work more hours, or take on a second job. I know they had the holiday let, but one self-catering unit doesn’t take up huge amounts of time. It’s more a case of being on hand and doing a changeover once a week. It certainly doesn’t preclude having a job! I think it’s also unclear why TW left his gardening job in 2004? If it was too physical, other jobs are available!

Seems to be that a big factor behind the decision to steal money was the entitlement, the belief that they were too good for ordinary, full time jobs, and the evidence seems to point to both of them having this view.

I get terribly torn between wanting to ask the WWs just what the HELL they thought they were playing at, and wanting to play Devil's Advocate and attempt to be fair to them.

Perhaps SW only worked part time because of the lack of availability of local full time jobs? If you live rurally (as I do) then sometimes you need to be available to transport children to and from school (if they do any after school activities there may only BE the school bus to get home and they need fetching by car if they stay on). So I can sort of give her a pass on that one. But a family meeting to change the situation (maybe move house? Maybe set up a camping barn?) when the money starts to run low ('sorry kids, you're going to have to give up the Tuesday and Thursday rugby club, I need to work full time') - rather than 'I know, I'll just steal it!' I presume she started small, little amounts here and there just to cover essential bills, didn't get found out and eventually ended up taking more and more...

But if she'd only come clean and written TSP as a redemption book rather than a 'we had no other choice' book, we wouldn't be having these many threads'worth of discussion!

I have got to a point where the right way forward is to raise the important issues with the main players - the agent, editors, publisher.

Any advice as to how to approach this would be gratefully received.

In my experience it is always best to try for the top - you will get put over to a team anyway.

Penguin invite admissions to correct inaccuracies - but that is simply beyond a joke now.

They always offer an email address if you have any comments, but it is a general editor. The top UK person seems to be:

[email protected]

I am thinking of the best way to frame the complaint .......

@Vroomfondleswaistcoat being almost the same age as SW, and also living fairly rurally and having children around the same time as she did, I do get what you’re saying. It’s a struggle to combine work with children. But I still stand by the point that rather than cut their cloth, or make changes to their life style, SW chose to steal money, which is something that just wouldn’t feature on most people’s radar! She clearly felt that they were so entitled to continue living in rural bliss, without the pressure of 9-5 jobs, that she stole rather than adjust their own expectations/ lifestyle.

also, wasn’t she still stealing money around 2007/8? It was a stealing a particular sum of money at that point which alerted Martin Hemmings. By then, the eldest child was at uni I think, and the second not far behind. They weren’t little kids needing mum or dad around to pick up from school and look after them. There was no reason why SW, TW or both couldn’t be working as many hours as needed by this point.

I'm in this camp. I can't see how he wouldn't know about the embezzlement. Just not realistic. His job didn't give him access to money, hers did, which is a good excuse for her being the one to take all the risks. But remember, it was his family member she ran off to in London for help - you're not telling me he wouldn't have known about (or suggested) that.

@UpfromSomerset

"But by becoming a best- selling author SW, playing the role of RW, had the opportunity to reach and deceive a much wider audience (via radio/TV/literary events etc.) and the temptation proved too great to resist"

In the history of scamming, this pair must be some of the best. They kept this up for 7 years right out in the open, all over the media in SalRay's case.

I agree. The most skillful manipulators will lever others into doing their bidding, so that, in the event of exposure, can stand back and say they've done nothing wrong and knew nothing about it.

I think we've established that SalRay desperately wants to keep her husband and is insecure, perhaps afraid of being on her own.

lithub.com/nature-is-not-going-to-cure-you-on-raynor-winns-fabricated-memoir/

Oh I’m sure by the time she ran off to London to evade the police and beg a loan off TW’s relative, he would have known she was in deep shit. But certainly in the early days, I can imagine SW passing off the money as bonuses, or overtime pay. It’s quite feasible that in a small family business, her pay could fluctuate. I just find it hard to believe that right from the start she told him ‘we need more money so guess what? I’m going to start stealing it!’
I mean, it’s possible, nothing is off the table with these two, but it would be a massive thing to suddenly decide and assume your partner would go along with.

Seems to me the most likely scenario is she started it secretly, paying for food shopping etc with money from the business. Then it grew from there.

I imagine when the £9000 was discovered and she sold off various items and went sobbing to the Hemmings saying sorry, TW would know something was going on. But again, she could have passed this off as ‘mistakes were made’ and convinced TW that she hadn’t necessarily done anything wrong, and that she just wanted to square things with the Hemmings and move on. It was only when the Hemmings went back through years of accounts that the scale of embezzlement came to light.

For me, RayMoth's impromptu claim that he only had months to live (when questioned by the orchard owner) suggests that he has a major role in the deception. It wasn't SalRay who stepped in, but Moth himself when the chips were down.
However, when there's time to form a plan, SalRay is centre stage - for example, approaching Moth's own relative to get the money. All very odd.

And didn't she try to run away briefly when she was found out over the embezzlement..Might have been part of the fakery of course, but maybe she really was trying to escape the whole sordid web - and perhaps TW as well?

But maybe she came home with some cash to pay into the bank one day, and TimMoth said Martin Hemmings is wealthy, we need to pay for that new powder blue Aga/Range, you're always working longer than your allotted two days a week, we really deserve this money. Don't pay it in, let's spend it instead.

I can see both scenarios, and perhaps we'll never know!

(having posted these post this morning I am nonetheless a bit uneasy that I might be straying into distasteful speculation - if anyone thinks I am , please call me out, I am not at my sharpest today after a tiresome few days...)

Has SW ever acknowledged or praised Angela Harding's artwork? I've not seen it in anything I've read or heard.

If it is actually true that Moth stated he had been told not to plan beyond Christmas then for me that catapults him into different territory. There is zero chance that a consultant ever gave him that news - absolutely zero. It is very telling because if Moth did actually say this it really does reveal him as capable of telling blatant lies for sympathy.

Did he state that or was it reported via SW?

Was it the orchard owner who said he felt he had been gaslit by this statement from Moth? Apologies if I have this wrong.

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know if there have been any sightings of the Raymoths recently?
I really feel for their adult children, it must be so painfully embarrassing to be in their position.

I've read on here, though can't remember the source, that she supposedly said something resentful about Harding making money out of the book association. If true that is breathtakingly self centred.

Yes I believe it was Bill Cole(?) the orchard owner who said this. And said it was Moth who said it not RW.