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.

In real life she is an attractive woman. I would never have looked at them and said that she was ‘punching’.Tim just has that extra something that draws people to him. In another life he could have been an actor/rockstar/celeb poet. I was intrigued to see on the One Show Interview that Sally remarks when JI, after gushing about M/T, says quickly that she is loveable too, ‘not like him though’ or words to that effect. It’s that X factor cliche and he has it.

I feel there’s a power imbalance & I think from photos he was much more attractive & seemingly self assured than she was in youth. I agree she’s not unattractive.

Could this X factor help explain why he might have been mistaken for SA? The supposition being, he must be 'somebody' and not an unemployed and homeless master plasterer. Also there probably weren't many photos of SA circulating on the SWCP where he was walking.

It's about confidence IMO. I also think Salray is attractive and probably was when she met Timmoth. If we accept her narrative that she was quite shy and sheltered, I can see her being dazzled by him, looks and charisma and interested in her. What is harder to understand for me is that she seems to still be hero worshipping him 30 odd years later. While of course love can last and grow, I think most of us have a more realistic view of our spouses after a couple of decades (and they of us of course)

Yes, which is maddening because she's in fact very nice-looking, she just doesn't seem to believe it.

Perhaps I am just immune to TW types' charms. He certainly reminds me of men I know and don't much care for -- I find myself wanting to be my sourest and most shrewish self and say 'Look, no need for the charm, I'm not going to fall over like a ninepin.'

I've met SA (I introduced him for a reading), and there is no hint of X factor! Blokey McBloke, in a perfectly nice way, if you discount the belligerent Resting Bitch Face.

Oh, sorry, I think I'm misunderstanding you -- you're saying that TW's charm and air of 'being someone' is why people thought he was SA, not because SA exudes man about town charm, but because TW had an air of being something other than a destitute wild camper?

It could, but it seems far more likely to me that Raymoth just made it up.

Yes, i think the closest this came to any SA related conversations was they possibly met someone who said "oh, you know Simon Armitage is doing what you are doing?"

Colossus of Paths

Why moth, he doth bestride the narrow path
Like a Colossus, and we petty mumsnetters
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable fudges

I shared before how an US imprint of Penguin withdrew the following book.

The eminent literary critic who had enthused over the Margaret Seltzer book (Love and Consequences by Margaret B Jones) described it as this "humane and deeply affecting memoir", though she did comment that "some of the scenes can feel self-consciously novelistic at times".

I think most of the scenes in TSP are "self-consciously comedic", They are modelled on 500 Mile Walkies but that is straightforward comedy.

I do not understand how this was so well-received in a book with a tragedic origin story?

With the amount of lying she has done in the book, I believe the Moth hero worship was created for her middle-age female readers. I went back to the video where she is slight shaking her head "No" in parts of the video where she discusses her book. When she talks about Moth being the love of her life, I think its around 47 seconds, she shakes her head no. They probably have a typical marriage.

I see a gulf between them in looks alone when they first met looking at photos. The guys that looked like him at college esp with an X factor, were chasing the Olivia Newton John or young Julie Christie lookalikes light up a room/model cover girl look types but the latter prob not into roughing it on the moors.

He describes her as an adorable goof ball or similar which hints at a power disparity. She was is/perfectly attractive but I think he’s let her feel she’s out of his league all her life. It tells.

Someone like TW needs a supporting character and she is it.
The trendy, confident, good-looking peacock types aren't actually all that. Plenty of them are style over substance. A Bon vivant, holding court when they have an audience is all well and good, especially if you’re the shy character hiding behind them. It doesn’t pay the bills, though.

Interesting @User14March . I think some people want or need for soem reason adulation in a relationship and I'm not sure the perceived A listers in any setting are the most likely to be the ones to provide it, even to one of their kind, because they're usually well aware of their social currency. Someone more diffident and unsure of themselves would be more likely to feed into that "need" perhaps, to their own detriment.

It maybe shows a sort of insecurity in the person needing hero worship. The most devastatingly handsome man I ever knew was quite self deprecating and a bit of a goof ball himself, which is more attractive than superficial charm IMO.

@Uricon2 He’s unusually handsome at 20 odd with apparent charisma & usually like attracts like initially in flush of fertile youth. People approximately match. I don’t feel they quite did.

As a PP said the ‘peacocks’ rarely graft & pay the bills IME too. Sometimes they marry a capable woman & undermine - there’s a brill Fay Weldon short story about a weekend away that perfectly captures the type.

Humour & true self confidence (not arrogance) character to me outweigh matinee idol looks any day, totally agree.

To be fair, haven't we only seen one blurry photo of young Moth?

I think they do look like a slightly odd match looks-wise but feel bad about thinking it...perhaps he's grown into his looks and got better with age (the annoying way that some men do ).

We keep mentioning TW's student career at Plymouth/Eden Project but I don't think we've any evidence that he graduated with a degree, have we? (Or have I missed something?) I was wondering about someone with cognitive decline doing a min 3 year degree course and I'm not sure whether that would be feasible.

According to media, he was part of a student team in 2016 but that simply says that the studenst are on the HND and BSc courses. I don't think I've seen anywhere where it states that TW was doing the latter.

I know that Salray implies that he got a degree but I don't think that counts for much!

I also wonder if Eden would make it known that he was an alumnus if he had graduated (HE places do like to brag about their famous alumni!), but I can't find any mention of that. Yes, there's plenty of mention of the WinnWalkers doing fundraising sleepouts with the Eden Project, and I find it a bit odd that the Eden Project, in their publicity about this, never seem to mention that TW has studied there.

And if he was doing an HND, I don't think he'd be eligible for a student loan, would he? I don't know much about how the system was working in HE 9-10 years ago.

Not so sure - by and large her MO is to embellish a nugget of truth rather than completely make stuff up.

He has v blue eyes & is very tall. Unusual.

I think there is just a varying nugget/made up ratio!

The nugget could be Simon doing the walk. I think the three old ladies in Combe Martin story is to show TimMoth's charm. They would not have just called him Mr Armitage.

He’s pleasant enough, and has a look/style. I’ve met those sort who aren't actually that good looking, but have the charm, the personality and magnetism.

We aren’t saying he is a rival to George Clooney or Harry Styles or any other film or music star who is universally considered to be good-looking, just that’s he’s a bit like that. A bit good looking, a bit charming, a bit interesting, a bit well-read? A bit prone to telling people he has a botany degree, he teaches the gardening degree, he won’t make it past Christmas…

Excellent blog piece by P.T.Dymond.

I've also been thinking about this lately and I'm also doubtful about him doing the full degree. I looked into the course recently and it comes in 1, 2 and 3 year options: HNC, HND, and BSc respectively. So we know TW definitely did the HNC. The media piece implies he was at least enrolled for the HND but whether that happened is unknown. Let's say he did do 2nd year, he'd have been finishing round about the time RW got a publishing deal (if we believe her timeline) in July-Sept 2017. That might have made him/them think twice about finishing the course if they had a reasonable advance to live off. If we consider the possibility RW actually got a publishing deal a year sooner in 2016, then TW may have stopped at HNC level.

I think loan-wise he'd have been eligible even if he dropped out after one or two years to get a lesser qualification because the course leads to a BSc.

Announcing that you have been told not to plan beyond Christmas when you have most certainly been told no such thing is a pretty shoddy thing to do.

Of no real relevance to these threads but Sir Chris Hoy, now there's a man of immense integrity. He has just given and given and given since his tragic diagnosis. I feel Raymoth have lied and taken and taken and taken.