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.

On The Accidental Smallholder forum, a couple of the reviews do seem genuine. The writers had been on the forum for over a year, were still on years later and had posted 2881-3555 times. Unfortunately neither have been on for over 4 years so chances are they no longer use this forum. Gangani only posted 16-25 July 2012 and one other poster who reviewed only posted between 19-23 July 2012, so no prizes (not even a fudge finger) for who we think that might be. And we don't know if the one lady ever got her e-copy.

Agreed, I think there are some genuine reviews, and across the websites too.

I'm also as sure as I can be that the WWWs and/or their reps have been hoovering up any available copies of HNTDDD for quite some time. Based on what we now know and suspect, I really don't blame them!

I'd certainly like to get hold of a copy to read, share with you all and hand over to Our Chloe. Being unselfish about it, if anyone who happens to be lurking and reading these threads has a paper or download copy of HNTDDD, please do your public, literary and Mumsnet duty and forward it to Chloe Hadjimatheou c/o The Observer!

Re Salray's insistence in her mea-non-culpa, that TW is ill; it's possible that whatever TW has, it is showing more as cognitive problems than as a movement disorder. And dementia isn't "sexy", and isn't rare enough to be the hook for TSP etc.

So, as with so much else, there could be a grain of truth in her assertions, but not quite the true truth. And if course she wouldn't now be able wheel out TW and announce the real situation now.

She does refer in various places about TWs memory worsening.

Can I just say again that How Not to Dal dy Dir strikes me as possibly being the worst book title of all time? (It beats Lightly Salted Blackberries into a definite second place.) I know there was a discussion umpteen threads ago about what the expression 'dal dy dir' means in Welsh ('hold your ground'?), and I recognise that the two-language title is meant to reference the fact that the novel takes place in Wales, though written, presumably, entirely in English.

But the twee squishing together of two languages is a bit cringe, not to mention that, if it's intended for an English-language readership, having the key element of your title in Welsh is a bit baffling or potentially offputting, as you don't know from the title what kind of novel this is going to be -- How Not to Fall in Love? How Not to Be Murdered in the Library? How Not to Be Caught With Your Pants Down? How Not to Die Alone on a Desert Island?

"how not to be caught with your pants down" would seem pretty apposite now!

How not to get caught with your fingers in the till?

How Not to be caught with your Fingers in the Fudge Display?

How Not to be caught being Unflinchingly Dishonest?

How Not to be caught being Unterminally Ill? *

So many options. We are spoilt for choice.

*I know, I know, not a real word, before our Pedantry Correspondents pop up to do their very important job.

One of the major discrepancies has been:

The only reason for writing TSP was as an aide-memoire for TimMoth

TimMoth was currently doing a BSc

Can I just say again that How Not to Dal dy Dir strikes me as possibly being the worst book title of all time?

Totally @YarrowYarrow . It is incomprehensible to anyone monoglot English and I can imagine deeply irritating to native Welsh speakers (who all have perfect English) I have no idea who they/she was trying to appeal to with this bastardised title.

He was able to amass vast amounts of information on his academic studies, but had a giant memory hole when it came to walking the SWCP? As if he's been given a memory-modifying spell, as the Ministry of Magic seem to have to keep doing to Muggles who see something they shouldn't in the HP universe.

@Lantic Met him at an event. Really liked him - which is what JI seemed to do. He is tall and handsome and had a real presence that draws you to him. She was very quiet.
Tim is a very charismatic and magnetic man. He is warm and welcoming and has a rock star presence. Jason Issacs responded to that.

This is so positive that I was tempted to quip 'Is that you Timmoth? Is that you Salray?'

If you met them at an event, does that mean you met them more recently, after the success of TSP and in their Raynor and Moth Winn personas @Lantic ? Are you able to tell us any more?

I don't speak any Welsh, but if anyone on here does, does it even work syntactically when you bodge together an English negative infinitive clause with a Welsh expression? In the language I do speak which is closest to Welsh (Irish, and not that close), it would be gobbledygook, but I assume the Walker children, if not their parents, must have been Welsh speaking? Enough to give the sheep a Welsh name.

I hope this won't be too O T.

I've just finished reading Helen Rebanks' memoir, The Farmer's Wife. Aimed at a similar audience, it's infinitely better written, cleverly constructed , has no unbelievable anecdotes, and has excellent dialogue. I was sad when I finished it, rather than counting the pages to the end as I was with TSP.

It's a genuinely honest and compelling piece of work, where she describes her life with the farmer/writer James Rebanks. I finished it with nothing but admiration for her.

Interestingly, SW contributes a highly ambivalent and rather odd blurb: " It's quite an achievement to portray the quiet power behind the choices we make for our children- be it the food on the table or the life we choose to live."

The book isn't really about choices for her children although their presence is woven through the narrative. It's about the life of an incredibly hard working woman in her multiple roles as mother of four, wife, creator, community member, cook, building project manager over a succession of complex renovation projects , family accountant and administrator, and last but not least farmer.

I can't help feeling she probably fires up very many of SW's insecurities.

I think that it is another example of the WWW's appropriation, in this case of Welsh and Wales.

We need @TonstantWeader and others on the job again.

Basic book-keeping could easily be done with just good admin skills, particularly when SW started in the nineties. At that time and in a small business, it would have been ledger/paper based and the system of work flow would already be in place. An aptitude for maths and on the job training would be enough. I have worked in bookkeeping and only later on did the training but I definitely think that the experience was way more useful than the college training I did.

No not Sally writing in role! I met them around the time The Wild Silence was published. (I have been lurking on this thread for awhile and had seen a couple of comments where people wondered if he was her puppet so wanted to lend my limited knowledge to the discussion) . My experience of meeting him was that he was very sociable and they seemed very much a team. I actually really liked him. Now I wonder if that is how it works? People like Tim so much that they are prepared to overlook anything? In the interview with Bill Coles, Mr Coles seemed heartbroken when he learned Tim would not have much longer to live, which suggests they had become close friends. Close enough for them to have the cider farm for a bit.
I can’t comment on whether or not Tim looked sick because you can’t really tell by looking at people. But he seemed on good form. At the time I think I made the comment he was a great advert for walking. She was very shy and almost seemed overwhelmed by the attention. That’s all the details I can give you, but there must be people who know them or knew them?

I don’t want to be negative on Ray but when I was at College the ‘Moths’ would date the best looking charismatic standout girls. Ray doesn’t fit for me especially if Moth has always had matinee idol pull & energy (?)

Moth uncomfortably reminds me of my DDs ex partner, who I can project thirty years in the future being very much like Moth. So I have an instinctive dislike of men of this type!

Are we guilty of taking 'Moth' at 'Raynor's estimation, though?

I'll admit that I've seen very few video clips or interviews with TW to compare how he comes across in the media with the representation of him in TSP and its sequels, so I'm speculating here, but is the reflected glow of the adulatory depiction of him in the book (blond, free-spirited eco-warrior turned charismatic ruin restorer, farmer, poetry reader and font of knowledge of all things nature-related, tragically cut down in his prime by a horrible illness, to which he refuses to give in) affecting how we see him?

Because surely another way of looking at him would be an above-average-looking chancer and layabout, not good at holding down a job for long, helping cover up his wife's criminality, colluding with his wife on a bestseller which falsifies both their past and his diagnosis, claiming he has two months to live when the cider farm doesn't seem to be working out, letting her do the work of publicity upfront while he glories in her hagiographic depiction of him and happily shares in the moneys it has accrued?

(Hell of an ego boost to have Jason Isaacs play you in a film, too, and be all over the media weeping and enthusiastic about what a fantastic person you were. SW says in interviews that she couldn't see how someone as glamorous as GA could play her, but TW has never chimed in with 'Ditto!')

Is he not just also, possibly, a self-satisfied layabout who's been fictionally elevated to sainthood in book form by his adoring wife?

Thanks for delurking, for your insights and welcome to the threads @Lantic

Tim 100% told Bill Cole he had been told not to plan beyond Christmas. Bill Cole was brokenhearted. Although Sally is the face of the brand, Tim is an active part of the enterprise.

Yes, my own instinct is that they are in it all together, especially considering Timmoth's manipulation of Bill. Bill was understandably drawn in and perhaps more vulnerable at a time of his own wife's breast cancer. Timmoth isn't just absent, or present but quiet, during all of the claims made in the books or by Salray in person. He says what he did to Bill and he makes other corroborating comments, for example at the end of the interview with Sophie Raworth. He also apparently taught Jason I, amongst other things, that he needed to drag his leg to portray him accurately in the film.

Yes & no I think. He’d have def caught my eye at 18, looking at photos. JI & others who apparently have met him note unusual charisma.

This ‘type’ often rely on above to opt out of 9-5 grind & end up with women that carry them. The more unpleasant IME let a lesser attractive partner know that they have all the power. Affairs often beckon.

Apart from the 'less attractive partner' and the affairs - this is DDs ex to a T. There are a lot of them about.

In the orchard, at Porlock Weir, etc:

he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus

If we are to believe that the consultant is the consultant who wrote the review, it's perhaps interesting to note his specialism is cognitive neurology and dementia.

Colossus of Rhodes

Looks aren't the be all and end all but I agree..more importantly, I don't think the extremely handsome man that SW views Moth as is the best match for someone with insecurity issues...and it's clear throughout tsp that she has these.