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.

You could be right, but we have no evidence yet of any existing copies so it only confounds any efforts to get to the bottom of who wrote it or whether the award people would even be bothered look into it.

I think that I have found evidence of paperback copies being in existence.

Is it just a coincidence that Our Simon's new collection of poems about death is moth-centric or is he getting his own back for his identity being appropriated?

Simon Armitage makes peace with the dead | The Observer

New Cemetery by Simon Armitage is published by Faber & Faber

She sure does seem bitter and entitled - I bet she’s catatonic with rage and plotting her revenge on CH and the Observer, but like DreamyHiker says, there’s probably a lot more to her murky past which she wouldn’t want to come out - not a cats chance in hell that she’s going to take the risk of a court case. She seems to me the type that would send anonymous poison pen letters (imagining Raymoth spending their days sitting at the kitchen table with a pot of glue, cutting out individual letters from newspapers ransom note style 😂).

*Sorry, that was a bit mean

She strikes me as someone who can " talk the talk" but can't "walk the walk". I have a close family member like that.

Yeah, I too know someone like this funnily enough . It’s one of the reasons I’m so interested in this story- see a lot of similarities in behavior and personality between this person and SW- the superiority, disdain for others, seeing the worst motives in everything other people do, anything bad always being someone else’s fault, the victimhood. But sometimes able to be extremely charming. Creating a false persona to sell something, changing names and disappearing when things get tough, the huge embellishments and misrepresentations ,( “ Those years I spent my nights dancing with Tom Cruise” sounds better than “ I went to a club once years ago and Tom Cruise was there” . Reminds me of the “ farm” consisting of a couple of sheep and chickens - there’s always a GRAIN of truth). The dodgy finances. The totally unrealistic expectations and TERRIBLE business sense i.e seriously thinking they’d sell enough copies of HNTDDD and dodgy lottery to cover paying back the debts on their house, or thinking they’d be able to live off their tiny bit of land. Jumping on the bandwagon of causes, such as homelessness, ultimately for their own gain.
The”normal jobs are for little people” attitude. Sort of cunning and manipulative - intuitively knowing what other people really want and also their worst fears, but actually not that clever in other ways -SWs rebuttal letter in fact confirming TW hadn’t in fact been diagnosed when they did the walk. Ughh. it's all soooo familiar. That’s what gave me the idea of SW furiously writing evil revenge letters threatening all sorts of legal action, late at night after a couple of bottles of…hem, hem “home made” cider). The thing is, this person I know actually starts to believe the stuff they say is true and is absolutely enraged and incredulous if anyone calls them out - I wonder if it’s the same with SW. The only bit I don’t get is how TW fits in. The person I know never had a partner for very long before it ended in a dramatic disaster ( occasionally involving a court room). What’s the chances SW and TW are BOTH like that ?😳I find it fascinating. Not sure if it’s good fascinating or bad fascinating, but fascinating nonetheless.

The point is that any existing copies aren't readily available for any potential undermining of the award. There was one on Ebay in May but where that is now is anyone's guess.

There are always people who will enjoy books that others find execrable. Look at how many reviews gushed over 'Fifty Shades of Grey'- regarded as one of the most badly-written books ever. There are almost incomprehensibly written books out there with thousands of positive reviews because there was just something in the story that spoke to a group of readers. Enjoyment of a book and the truth (or even likelihood of the story being real) are two separate things. They say there is a book for every reader, and TSP (plus follow ups) appealed to people who love the South West Coastal Path and the surrounding countryside or who like books about 'little people make good'.

Doesn't mean they are objectively 'good' books though. Not that there really IS an 'objectively' when you talk about books - all reading is subjective.

Some people can detect subtleties others (myself included) would miss.
Not to be outdone, the Times newspaper featured TSP in the wake of the Observer's revelations and it was possible to comment via Times-on-line. A gentleman (not me) responded, stating that his wife was convinced that the descriptive parts of TSP had been written "by someone else" - or "had been lifted from a guidebook." These were the very parts of the book which reminded me of my childhood in West Somerset and also revived happy memories of camping on North Hill above Minehead with the family. (At the CC campsite that is, not wild camping.)

ISBN 978-0-9573131-0-2.
This is the ISBN number for how not to dal dy dir.

I still haven't read as much as a word of TSP or follow ups. My very good friend read all three books, absolutely adored them and tried to get me to read them too. But I refused, because there was just something about the whole thing that didn't sit right with me. I rationalised it as professional jealousy - why should her books sell millions and leave her sitting pretty while my books languished and I still had to work a day job to make ends meet?

But I think it was a more visceral reaction, after all, there are THOUSANDS of writers whose books sell better than mine and I don't hate them all. In fact many of them are very good friends of mine. So I still can't put my finger on just why I couldn't bring myself to read more than the odd excerpt from TSP, other than there was just something very slightly too smug about SW whenever I saw her being interviewed. Something a bit too 'aren't I clever? Aren't you sorry you aren't clever like me?' about her performance.

She raised the hairs on the back of my neck. And so I was not at all surprised when CH blew the whole thing open.

Morning all, it's nice to be back after hosting a lovely but attention-demanding guest over a long weekend. I'm knackered now!

Picking up the point about the title of HNTDDD, yes, it's godawful and doesn't make any sense. There is a lot of 'borrowing' from English in the colloquial Welsh that's spoken in my neck of the woods, but more in the format that you'd get a sentence in Welsh with an English word dropped in. For example when I'm out walking the Wild Rovering Pooing Correspondent, he gets commented on a lot because he's an unusual looking chap (not SA btw) and he's a big lad. I usually respond with something along the lines of 'mae o'n iawn, jyst huge' which means 'he's ok, just huge'. Huge, really and lovely are pretty common borrowings, but transliterated into Welsh spelling, so 'rili' for 'really' & 'lyfli' for 'lovely'. A friend will often say 'dwi'n mor egseited!' or 'I'm so excited!'. You wouldn't get a half formed English sentence with a Welsh phrase tacked on to the end.

I grinned to myself yesterday pm when Fbk suggested a new friend to me based on mutuals, and this person had a big banner pic with 'Dal Dy Dir' behind them 😂- not Raymoth, I promise!

Absolutely @TonstantWeader , another being "maes parcio" for a car park (maes =field in Welsh, parcio obviously parking) Borrowing happens in all languages, they evolve and grow and very old ones like Welsh add words to reflect the modern world.

What you absolutely don't get is half a sentence in English and half in Welsh. It is a nonsense.

ETA Welsh has been a language under immense threat almost within living memory and I can't imagine some daft saeneg woman faffing around with it like that would attract many readers.

Totally, @Uricon2 . But not a lot of what the WWs do makes sense!

Musing further on whether the 4th book will come out: would PRH really risk a further round of crap publicity drawing attention to all the discrediting or will they just quietly put it out without fanfare? Or will they just keep postponing and postponing and let people draw their own conclusions? And what's Angela H's position or obligation? Her gorgeous artwork has been a big part of why the books sold IMO, so where does she stand now if she wanted to disassociate herself from any further cover art? Would she be contractually obliged to have her images used if they'd already been submitted as part of the original 2025 publication plan? I'd be interested in thoughts from those who know the publishing world better than I do.

Ditto to knowing nothing about publishing either - obviously the book's title OWH has been chosen - also the cover design and publicity. So presumably RW has typed up the story/manuscript to her and the editor's satisfaction. But at what stage is the M/S sent to the printers?
Just how will the publishers not only minimise further losses but also emerge from the situation they find themselves in with their reputation untarnished?

My hunch is that advance/proof copies would already have been printed ready to distribute to reviewers and bookshops. Someone in PRH will have got wind of the Observer investigations and article just in time and will have put a stop to any early distribution for publicity purposes. I imagine that there's a big pile of advance copies sitting on pallets in a warehouse somewhere while someone makes the decision about whether to go ahead or not.

Well, CH said she was advised by her own editor to contact SW straightaway at the start of her investigation, or close to it, so PRH will have had ample time to halt the distribution advance publicity copies/galleys via Net Galley once they decided it was a credible and damaging story. It’s hard to know the exact timeline, but, counting backwards from the publication date OWH was scheduled for, it’s just about possible the investigation was known about before the MS went to the printers, in which case it wasn’t printed. Failing that, yes, there will be a lot of copies of OWH in a warehouse.

Does anyone know if CH has any further articles planned on TSP?

This would tally with Waterstones offering signed copies on its website.

I would really really love Our Simon to be subtly trolling Raymoth...this book...meeting with Angela Harding accompanied with warm praise.. I'm sure he isn't but it would be so funny. He definitely knows about it all, it was mentioned on Stuart Maconie's show when he was on.

Just to say I was in Waterstones today (looking for a card) and there were some lovely Angela Harding tote bags in the card & gift section. One was the salt path print, the other I think a hedgehog hidden below a hedge.
Either would make a lovely gift for someone.

If only there was someone who works in that warehouse reading this thread 😔

SA speaking soon at Chelt Lit Fest.

Kerri Andrews speaking too on her book Pathfinding - walking/motherhood, etc. I hadn’t realised the whole ‘walking’ genre so popular.

www.kerriandrews.co.uk/book/pathfinding-on-walking-motherhood-and-freedom/

https://kerriandrews.co.uk/book/pathfinding-on-walking-motherhood-and-freedom/