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

Not so sure about that.

The film seemed pretty much to adhere to the story - as set out in TSP.
As I am familiar with the Minehead area I noted that shots of Culbone church were absent altogether (I subsequently discovered they had found a Cornish churchyard in a wooded setting for use as a substitute, which allowed much easier access for all the gear and support team!)
And I noticed that the couple arrived in Cornwall, then apparently "doubled back" to North Devon (Clovelly). Simply out of sequence, but acceptable as part of the "dramatisation".

My guess there is a lot more to come out in respect of the second mortgage that was taken out to fund the payment to the Hemmings to keep SW out of the courts:

• whoever made 2nd mortgage/possibly bridging loan looks like they were in the business for such lending, given the high interest rate and the fact that they didn't waste much time in commencing legal action for recovery, presumably when they made the loan they would have looked for collateral/guarantees so that they would be repaid.
• something would have convinced the second mortgage lender that there was some prospect of recovery before they commenced court action against the Walkers - these sort of high risk/ high reward lenders usually don't go to such lengths unless there is a good chance of a decent recovery. They would probably have been aware of the market value of the property - but they may have not been aware of the size of the first mortgage, or perhaps more likely there was a guarantor of the borrowing (possibly from the family, which might explain the nephew's comments on the now deleted LinkedIn post)
• the series of events after the 2nd mortgage lender won the court case, when after a while the property was repossessed (the Observer documentation hides by whom) the first mortgage holder was repaid from the sales proceeds leaving next to nothing to pay the second mortgage holder, suggests to me that something happened in the period after the court case to stop the 2nd mortgage lender pursuing repayment?
• I think the Observer reported that whoever now holds the 2nd mortgage loan continues to say that it is outstanding, but it is difficult to understand why they are not pursuing the now wealthy Walkers for repayment, especially as they won the court case. One can speculate as to why that may be - argument/negotiation about the amount outstanding, liability of guarantors, continuing arguments about the documentation.
• the Observer made reference to having seen the papers for the court case - I'm sure they might reveal a lot but perhaps CH is saving them for her book. The Walkers have certainly shown no inclination to release them, continuing to rely on their own rather difficult to comprehend account of what happened in court.

It would also be interesting to know what contribution if any Moth was making to household costs, including the substantial mortgage during the quite long period after leaving his gardening job with the NT and the property repossession.

Also of interest might be SW’s downward career progression from being a law clerk, with some qualifications, to book-keeping first for a failed hotel and then an estate agency might also be worthy of some examination.

Most fraudsters start relatively small and then build up as their confidence builds after achieving the initial fraud.

Totally agree. People in Cornwall are very unimpressed.

I'm still interested in the first house move - from Staffordshire.

No-one seriously moves house because of one episode of a child getting out and running along the road - you change a lock or add a gate.

Why did they sell the house and move? Why rent in the new place? What happened to the money - did it stay in savings?

Qualifications that she mysteriously seems to have 'lost' by the time she has to try to find a job as per TSP, where being 50 and with 'no qualifications' means that she gets turned down for every job she applies for.

IIRC, the story was that they decided to sell, went through the entire sale process, and moved to Wales in a few weeks. Which seems rather fast going.

She's very selective with references to her qualifications. The 3 attempts at 'O' level Geography fit the windswept child of nature lost in a landscape.

The two thirds of a law degree? I wonder if she regrets claiming that. Clear thinking, logical analysis and an evidence-based approach don't really square with all the impulsive decisions. Or the image of simple, trusting laypeople who have been tricked into a legal agreement they don't understand and fighting a court case in an unfamiliar and intimidating legal system.

Was this their first house, described somewhere IIRC as a Victorian terrace?

Yes, salray seems to lean towards a habit translating her actions as those of a sensitive, altruistic soul when it's clear they were obviously self serving....

They remortgaged their home in Wales to buy the French house and save it from developers...
She couldn't get a job as she wanted to spend precious time with Moth..
There's multiple incidences of this throughout TSP..
Its embarrassing and reminds me of Ansty teenage behaviour

Yes, this seems suspicious to me. Did TW’s dad follow them, or did he move to Wales first do we know?

"A tiny Victorian terraced house that looked across a road onto a wood..."

I don’t think they’d have to move somewhere rural and isolated. I think with a change of hairstyle they’d look very different. SW is actually quite plain and has one of those faces which easily blends in. It’s more likely that they think they’ll be recognised and are hiding away.

Me neither.

A man stood up at the end of one of her literary/book signing/meet and greet things and said Quote: “Will you be an honorary Cornish person?”
(Bet he’s fuming now.)
Raynor Winn: “It took my breath away- as a complete outsider who can’t be regarded as Cornish, to be welcomed to Cornwall. It’s a truly beautiful place to live and I’ll happily stay.”
From Landlines:
’No matter what happens in life, no matter how far we travel, this strip of earth will always be home. We inhabit this path and it inhabits us. We’re home.’

Yeah right… that’s why you’re living in a £30 mil (can’t remember how much the paper said it was worth now) rental in the beautiful Helford passage.
Next book after OWH will be about how awful it was, all the many rooms and acres of land giving her acrophobia.

Yes, if SW gained a fringe and a bob and TW lost the hair gel and bandana they would be far less recognisable. Their hair is quite distinctive.

This crossed my mind too.

I think they just live in a cottage/house on the estate.

Acrophobia is what they should have had! Take care on the stairs.

I’m back from my stint being a child of nature. No long paths were walked, but we didn’t shower for over a week- the sea was more than adequate at keeping us reasonably fragrant- and didn’t change clothes much (underwear excepted). I’m starting the write-up on Monday and will do a few pages first for my husband, before sending it out into the world and then sitting back and waiting for the millions to roll in.

Did I miss much apart from your acerbic company? (I did miss that. Becoming fond of these threads!)

Well SW had better hope that TW takes a turn for the visibly worse very soon (not that I would wish it upon him at all, or anyone for that matter), because she can't keep churning out books about how he's worsening when he continues in such robust health. Particularly when you consider the gap between writing and publication can be nine months to a year - why has nobody questioned the fact that he's still up and running all these months later, after OWH was written? Presumably SW walking morose and alone and contemplating mortality - and by the time it comes out her husband is STILL in rude health...

Ahhhhhhh sorry…. Mistakes were made…
Thank you for the correction!

Probably because there’s a festering portrait of him in the old farmhouse attic 😱

OR - he's drinking the blood of virgins...

Many many threads ago, another poster (sorry can’t remember who)had a theory about a condition that TW would subsequently be diagnosed with which would let Raymoth off the hook and provide a plausible explanation for TWs fluctuating, and genuine, symptoms ( pp didnt want to name the condition in case it gave SW ideas, so I won’t either but I think I know what they were talking about). The only other way Raymoths going to retain any credibility is either to hope for a rapid and obvious decline in TWs health or disappear for a long, long time. Not an enviable position to be in. A story of misdiagnosis, however, a sob story about how they genuinely believed that TW was at deaths door, how awful it had been for them, how they had no intention of misleading people etc etc, I’m sure that’s how they’re going to play it- just give it time. By the way, I really do hope he has been misdiagnosed.