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'd guess the amount of money taken and that it wasn't taken in one moment of madness (if she took it) but over a period of time should prompt a custodial sentence...I'd like to think so.

Pies? Or do I mean Wigan?

I'm intrigued now about the shade being thrown at Melton Mowbray. I love a good local snark.

Pork(ie) pies!

I see that you can pre-order the 4th (5th) book on Penguin and the agent's websites for Oct 2026.

No sensitivity at all shown to the victims of theft or CBD sufferers.

D'oh! Thank you, @mauvishagain . It's been a long day, is my excuse.......

Those are slogans and I don't think they are particularly useful or applicable comparisons to the book's marketing and disclaimer and genre. No one, as far as I can tell, has denied that certain aspects of truth bending happens generally in non-fiction or memoir. Nor has anyone said they expected the 100% truth. But it's clear the output by RW has far far exceeded what would be considered reasonable truth bending for the sake of a compelling story that was based on real life events. Yet TSP wasn't even marketed as "based on real life", it was marketed as "this actually happened, according to the author, and we trust and believe them."

Advertising doesn’t have a moral compass! That’s my point.

I agree with that, but I think people can and should distinguish between advertising slogans that aren’t intended to be taken literally (e.g. KFC) and this situation, where we’re talking about taglines for memoirs.

In my opinion, an advertising slogan isn’t in danger of making a false claim but is just a fun bit of marketing that we all enjoy remembering, whereas a memoir tagline is actually promising something to the reader.

As lots of people have said on here and in articles about this in the media, I think this links to the contract between author and reader and the trust that is part of that contract.

Good evening all you lovelies, I have returned still with fresh socks, I had a great time away for a few days of caravan. It has taken me a while to catch up with the posts. I am so glad that everyone has made it onto thread 16, I have been smiling at the name reveals and changes.

I am particularly glad that no one is cling wrapped, I looked up the Fandango, you need a partner for the dance, but it can also be sung, maybe one for the charabanc, I was a bit sad that @Vroomfondleswaistcoat doesn't have a waistcoat, but sadder that out disappointed reader is still disappointed.

I just wanted to make a point about the way Penguin have marketed and advertised their product as a true story, if you believe this book has been proven not to be true and Penguin continue to advertise it as such, you can report it to trading standards. If you do decide to do this, when making your complaint, don't let them side track you into getting your money refunded for the book, you have to tell them it's the advertising that you want to make a complaint about.

The tagline has nothing to do with the author’s contract with the reader, though. The author didn’t write it, for one thing. And taglines and blurbs often have a remarkably loose relationship to the contents of the book. They’re often written by someone in marketing who’s only read a synopsis of the book, and sometimes not even that. They’re looking for a marketable angle. I wouldn’t ever buy anything on the strength of the blurb alone.

I think it says it all when you say they’re looking for a ‘marketable angle’.

The marketable angle here was the fact a series of unpleasant and unexpected things happened in quick succession (a week…) to the Winn/Walkers, and that the book relayed them all with ‘unflinching honesty’.

That sort of thing is obviously a marketing dream to publishers, but we know in hindsight that it’s not actually honest at all. I don’t see how it can be defended.

I agree @Poltroon the tag line could be anything, like the add jingles, but as @Fandango52 says what we need to focus on is where the publisher is advertising it for sale as a non fiction book that is a true story, to advertise that the main meat and potatoes of this story is true is false advertising.

I don't know how to link online articles to a post, I read a very interesting piece by a GP that I don't know if anyone has looked at, I am sorry if I'm replicating, you will have to tap it in old school, Elke Hausmann BjGP life The Salt Path, it should be the first article you can select. I think it is an interesting read and explains why this book has been damaging to many people.

Thanks FreshSocks. Here’s a link to the article you’ve mentioned - https://bjgplife.com/what-does-the-fallout-from-the-salt-path-saga-tell-us-about-our-societys-ideas-about-chronic-illness-and-exercise/.

Thank you @Fandango52 :)

But her publishers didn’t know it wasn’t substantially true, to the best of our knowledge. As lots of pps on previous threads have said, memoirs generally aren’t fact checked, being based on subjective recollections of occurrences, with an amount of latitude for rearrangement/condensation/embellishment for dramatic effect. (Chloe H’s newspaper article would have been subject to a lot more scrutiny than TSP, ironically.) A legal read would have focused whether there was anything actionable in the content. Someone in marketing wrote the blurb, tagline etc, probably off the back of a synopsis or a skim read. And they will have been selling it as just another consumer product, the same way they’d sell a shampoo or a lampshade, based on the information they had and their sense of what would appeal. ‘Unflinchingly honest’ in that context means something akin to ‘farm fresh eggs’ or ‘fresh garden salad’ on a menu.

It can still (at least in theory) be regulated if it makes outrageous or otherwise unacceptable claims. The ASA is not the toughest regulator by a long way but it does exist and can take action. It's not the case that advertisers can just acceptably tell outright lies and then go, 'ah, well, we're not very honest, actually'

Joining late for this one but hello! 🐇🐇🐇🐇

As you point out, fact-checking isn’t generally carried out in the publishing industry. I still don’t think this clears the publishers or the Walker/Winns of any wrongdoing though. I understand that it’s highly likely that neither of them will face any consequences over this (apart from the Walker/Winns losing face and having their reputation damaged), but I still think it’s wrong and not defensible.

"didn't know"? Whatever the publisher's state of knowledge was previously, it knows now - and continues to make the statements regardless.

I think I have missed a fair few threads. Been busy not walking the south west coast past and earning money the boring but honest way.

Finding it mind boggling that there are still new people hopping onto the threads who
a) can't tell the difference between a wee bit of embellishment/creativity and fundamental dishonesty in a "non fiction book"; and
b) think it is in anyway defensible to publish outlandish claims of "miracle cures" for a desperate and degenerative condition without running the book past any neurologists

@Poltroon I think awhile back over the threads people who have knowledge of publishing have said Salray would have signed some kind of disclosure to state the veracity of the story. @Fandango52 and @PullTheBricksDown do you remember? There was a lot of talk about Penguin probably being able to take some action against Salray but they wouldn't as they have made plenty of money.

But we can still complain if they keep advertising it as truth as @Peladon says. Very interesting @Aspanielstolemysanity do we know that they didn't run it by a neurologist, oh no stop, I've already sent one email :)

I think the tagline is generally based on the content of a book, so very much to do with the author's contract with the reader. By the time the book exists, the contract is both with author and the publisher who stands behind what the author has written. The "tagline" here isn't even "unflinchingly honest", it's only part of the blurb, according to Penguin:

"The Salt Path is an unflinchingly honest, inspiring and life-affirming true story of coming to terms with grief and the healing power of the natural world." (It doesn't take someone in marketing to write such stuff either - I've seen this kind of thing time and again in pitches and proposals by writers and filmmakers to demonstrate the appeal of a story).

I believe your original point was implying that people shouldn't be so naive as to think that non-fiction is 100% true. I don't think most people do, but I think people have to put trust in what they are being sold. To think people were naive to have trusted the blurb because it was merely a marketing ploy and they should not have interpreted it so incorrectly is absurd. That's how I'm reading your point so apologies if I misunderstood it.

There was a case a few years ago where ready meals like lasagne were withdrawn as they were labelled as beef, and it turned out the beef was mixed with horse. I don’t know who signed what paperwork, there was probably a long trail, that the meat was beef, but when it was discovered that it wasn’t, the products could no longer be sold. Not only for allergy reasons but also because the public expect to be able to trust what they’re buying, they don’t want to buy horse in the UK.

the genie is out of the bottle, the book cannot be marketed as “unflinchingly honest”, all Penguin needs to do is print some stickers saying “fictionalised recollection” or something, and stick it over the “unflinchingly honest” part.

I thought there was talk of SalRay having forged Mr H’s signature on cheques? Presumably to “buy shopping”* which she could have bought with her wages if they hadn’t bought a French folly. The cheque fraud would elevate the crime for me. It’s one thing being tempted by the £600 cash in your purse you’re supposed to bank. It’s another to fraudulently sign and cash a cheque, that’s premeditated.

*pls note the emotive implications, yet again. Mother stealing to feed the kids, you might imagine. SalRay and TimMoth are not responsible. Or if they are, they were desperate. Due to circumstances beyond their control. They just wanted to eat, have you no heart?

But you can't usually get away with selling something as "farm fresh eggs with fresh garden salad" if it's actually, I don't know, pork pies. Similarly there are limits to what can reasonably be marketed as a "true story".

Thank you to the folk who posted this article, it's a very important perspective and very informative. The author is really careful, as a doctor, not to make judgements or assumptions about TW's actual state of health (while incidentally showing that he almost certainly doesn't have CBD, specifically). But she does also make it very clear why not only the books, but possibly even more importantly the way the Walkers have talked about their experience, are a problem. RW does advocate exercise as a "cure". She never as far as I can tell acknowledges that it might actually harm some people - even though ME/ long COVID are quite well known, and most of us know people who have experienced what this article describes so well.

PRH might try and argue that there is an important but subtle distinction between 'unflinchingly honest', and 'unwaveringly accurate'.

The former might allow for some degree of artistic license to be employed in so far as it purported to express the honest feelings of the author experienced during the walk including a 'warts and all' account of everything they did (including petty theft and avoiding paying for certain services) and experienced hostility and social prejudice (about their state of homelessness) during the walk.

At the time, "unflinchingly honest" is how PRH might have viewed the book as they didn't at that stage know about the circumstances surrounding the house repossession or the true chronology of the CBD diagnosis.

However, they do now. Thus to keep calm and carry on describing TSP as unflinchingly honest after CH's revelations is surely ludicrous and a scandal in itself. It is the exact inverse of 'unflinchingly honest'. It is in all probability the product of deception, emotional manipulation and a highly embellished account of a series of short walks that have been stitched together with Machiavellian cunning to present the impression of Raymoth having completed them over 13 months rather than between 2-4 years.

To misquote a famous DIY advert, it doesn't really do what is says on the tin!