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'm sure the published books will continue to be bought by people who don't care whether memoirs are true, or think that 'artistic licence' covers all sins, but I really can't see how SW could ever slip back into 'literary life' after this. Too many people, from senior editors to casual book bloggers, know too much, and embezzlement of over £60,000 is a tough 'mistake' to live down, quite apart from the other allegations.

In fact I can't see how SW could expect to take part in any form of publicity for anything at all, because there would always be the risk of at least one awkward question from the audience. SW and Timmoth have money - I would predict that they will retire to a non-English speaking country where TSP is not widely read.

...

I think that the embezzlement has probably been rationalised by them as having been 'paid for twice over'. Not only did they pay back the original sum but they ALSO lost their house because of it. So, in their minds, it 'doesn't count as a crime'. I was watching a TV drama the other day (first series of Unforgotten), where a priest who has stolen a lot of money is told that if he pays it back he can avoid a custodial sentence, and I thought of this thread then!

So I suspect that the Walkers are muttering about their entire intent being 'misunderstood' and 'blown out of proportion'. It is the only way they can carry on, surely?

I think they'll change their name, move to somewhere very rural in Scotland and just keep quietly to themselves from now on. The books will continue to sell and they will continue to take the money.

I think the whole thing has made me increasingly cynical about this non-fiction ‘emotional journey’ type of book.. and I think I will struggle to take this type of book at face value ever again - so I do wonder whether this will affect how publishers operate in future, and whether this type of genre still has legs - given that this has been a very high-profile stripping away of all of the author’s credibility, most likely following the huge exposure that it got following the ‘Hollywood’ film adaptation…

It may tighten things up briefly (as for example Tom Sykes having to go through the MS of his addiction memoir with a lawyer and a fine-tooth comb, stripping out every possible embellishment and sending extracts to everyone mentioned in it, because he submitted just in the wake of the James Frey story breaking in 2008), but I'd be very surprised if it causes any permanent change.

@Vroomfondleswaistcoat, I tend to agree that the backlist will probably sell a future book by SW. I'm just interested in how her publisher will handle it, and exactly what that book will consist of.

Maybe the dapper, charming Tim will take over as the face of the brand, twinkling hostile journalists and audience members into submission.

who

Oh, I know what I wanted to ask --

Did anyone watch The Great Art Fraud two-part documentary on BBC 2 last night and the night before?

Completely different situation, obviously (charming, plausible young London-based American art-dealer, wonderfully named Inigo Philbrick, defrauds collectors out of £86 million by selling the same artworks numerous times, goes on the run to Vanautu just before Covid with his Made in Chelsea girlfriend, Victoria Something, and is eventually caught by the FBI in 2020 and jailed in the US in 2022, recently released), but his airy lack of contrition was fascinating: 'Obviously, all I can say is I'm sorry, but what I also find myself thinking is 'What about all the good deals?'

And his determination to get straight back in the game, despite defrauding many key gallerists, institutions, collectors and investors, forging Christies paperwork, and hasn't paid back the £86 million etc etc -- he still says 'I'm a really good art dealer!' and doesn't appear to see any reason why he can't get right back out there, as though it never happened.

The other thing I found really interesting was the folie á deux aspect. He and his girlfriend had this dizzying lifestyle, flying on private jets all over the world from one beach/party/ski-slope to the next, on stolen money, and she followed him into hiding and was six months pregnant when he was lifted.

To the documentary interviewer, she's as unrepentant as he is, clearly thinks everyone's making a bit of a fuss over nothing ('I mean, who hasn't broken the law?') and is astonishingly self-centred about it all. Everything is filmed for her social media, including IP's first meeting with their daughter after his release. Philbrick's US lawyer had to explain to her that no one knew who she was in the US, so she wouldn't be papped on the streets, and she kept doing insanely make-up caked duckface videos outside the prison he was in while awaiting trial.

It made me wonder yet again about (1) the genuinely unrepentant person, and the sheer power that lack of guilt or contrition has, how it seems to be related to impenetrable self-belief and (2) what keeps someone by their side, equally unrepentant.

The money is small beer, obviously, in the Walkers' case, but there's a similar robbing Peter to pay Paul attitude going on, a similar lack of contrition in SW's statement, other than sorrow for 'mistakes' in MH's employ, a similar disappearance/going on the run, a similar fused couple.

I think this blog has been posted here quite a while ago but I did enjoy this paragraph and thought @Vroomfondleswaistcoat might also appreciate the Douglas
Adams reference!

www.anyporthinastorm.com/index.php/articles

“The book, cluttered with poorly chosen adjectives and inappropriate metaphor, is reminiscent of secondary school creative writing hastily written late on a Sunday evening. Imagine listening to Vogon poetry over an extended distance. The eternity of deep space becomes increasingly appealing.”

I wonder, could the Christopher Bland prize be withdrawn because TSP claimed to be a true account and actually, seems anything but....maybe wishful thinking.

Perhaps it is just that I am surrounded by RGAs (Rock God Adonises) of the genuine variety in real life but I'm going to swim against the salty tide here and say that I don't think Timmoth is all that. All the attraction and adoration he receives has always puzzled me. To me, he just seems like quite an ordinary bloke from Burton. He and Salray seem well matched. His distinctive often mentioned hair is quite an odd and dated look for the 2020s. Yes he is tall and has got the Paul Hollywood twinkly blue eyes as mentioned before, but PH isn't all that either.

Timmoth has been hyped up by Salray in the books and in interviews. The film and Jason I's very vocal adoration of Timmoth has added an extra layer. It is almost as if he has reached God or guru like status through that and by being an apparent walking medical miracle. They have both scrubbed up well for interviews, events and particularly for the film publicity. Meanwhile I am left with that Emperor's new clothes feeling and that this Emperor really is just an ordinary bloke from Burton, sometime plasterer and gardener, and given what we now know I wouldn't trust him as far as I can throw him.

Of course beauty, charisma or handsomeness is in the eye of the beholder, but it can also be in the eye of the believer and seen through the lens of hype.

I'd just like to just say that the quality of writing from many posters on this thread is head and shoulders above RW's. I'm enjoying way more than I did TSP!

He served 3 years for appropriating $86 million @YarrowYarrow ? Blimey, I thought the US penal system was tougher than that. It does sound like the Raymoth mindset at work though.

ETA plus 2 on remand I suppose but even so.

PH def he’s all that. There’s a lot of truth here.

*PH def thinks he’s all that.

I agree with @DisappointedReader about Tim, it also made me remember something an old Yorkshire landlady I had years ago used to say, handsome is as handsome does, she also favoured, it's manners maketh man, not bricks and mortar :)

Hopefully Sal and Tim won't blow up the earth, although I'm pretty sure they wish they could at least destroy that part of it which has found them out.

Classic case of "Don't judge a book by its cover" I think @DisappointedReader (in the case of TSP the cover actually was superior to the book)

Ironically, Timmoth may have twinkle and charisma but The Real Our Simon, blokeyness, stoney wanted poster face and all has proper talent.

For a Beowulf toting master plasterer, to be mistaken for the future poet laureate, would I imagine be a feather in TW's cap and one in the eye for his brother Martyn a fellow literary wannabe and author of 'Stopcock'

Funny if Martyn is the one who ends up writing the exposé!

I’m wondering if the film company will sue them? They bought the rights to TSP in good faith. Now they have a film with this stigma attached - hard to sell to the USA and to promote for JI and GA If Penguin continues to lay the blame at the feet of the author and agent the only people to come after are the Walkers …

The time to investigate the 'unflinching truthfulness' was surely when the film script was in a preparation? I don't think that the film quite has to stand on the same ground as TSP, as things have clearly been changed for narrative effect, so the 'unflinching truthfulness' doesn't and cannot apply.

I see the film as a different animal, almost a separate entity. It's just a shame that the Walkers will benefit financially from it.

Certainly it seems as if SW will continue to benefit financially from ongoing royalties and perhaps even more books, who knows. But can monetary success really compensate for a tarnished reputation? She is no longer the darling of that coastal path and as a PP astutely said she surely cannot possibly continue to engage in literary events.

I think all will be forgiven with the right management and 'their truth' in time.

I suspect the Cornish literary beau monde may be willing to forgive and forget.

I'm not so sure about her target audience and those that attend litfests such as Hay, the North Cornwall Literary Festival and Dartington Hall's 'A Way with Words' etc.

OWH may appeal less to those living on or near the SWCP and I wonder what insights a truncated 2 week walk on the C2C path in bleak midwinter is going to offer Wainwright afficianados.

Maybe her acolytes don't care either way, and just want to hear her voice once more even if it is 'sans Moth' and rsther than braving the elements and wild camping, she is staying in B&Bs.

Yes, I agree. The film is a dramatisation of a "true story" so not really subject to the "unflinchingly honest" tagline or the level of scrutiny the book(s) have been under.

I suspect OWH is meant to be the metaphor for the looming darkness of Moth's decline...using winter to signify the ' death' of nature before the rebirth of self in spring blah. Not dismissing Moth's illness at all but the symbolism of winter..and walking alone is all too obvious.