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 was wondering what would have happened if this was a working class couple? The wife would have been prosecuted and imprisoned for embezzlement. The husband would have been jailed for benefit fraud; claiming benefits for an illness he doesn’t have.
And yet this couple who have manipulated millions of people into buying her book, walk away multi millionaires and with virtually no repercussions. The scandal very soon will be forgotten and Sally will be promoting her new book at heavily curated events.

Drive by appreciation post to @DisappointedReader and all of you wonderful people contributing to these threads. I left Mumsnet to try and curtail my online time but this discussion has brought me back.

I haven’t read any of the RW books or seen the film, but I had heard of them and was definitely going to, as a woman nearing middle age (or probably firmly in it) hearing the call of nature to find peace and joy away from the chaos of modern life, I am definitely her target audience. Or was…

I have nothing insightful to add otherwise but will continue to enjoy the discussion and wait to see what happens next in this salty saga.

The photo of the immaculate and beautifully made up model is so very Vogue.

Adding Our Simon to the list of people who have written about how physically challenging they found the SWCP.

Thanks for saying. Are you able to share an extract, or summarise, please? I would be very interested to hear.

Very briefly, he struggled with the pretty much constant ups and downs of the terrain in many sections. I know some of that coastline (not well) and can see exactly what he means, you no sooner get to the top of a bit than you are walking downhill which puts different stresses on the body. All this obviously got harder once his back problem flared up but is there pretty much from from the start. His wife Sue joined him for the odd day and pulled a "downhill muscle" which meant she was using a strange crablike gait (she is an experienced walker) He also talked about sections having an electric fence on one side and a sheer drop on the other which was not relaxing.

The book is upstairs and I'm only allowed to do stairs once a day currently due to The Leg and the fact it makes them as challenging as Kilimanjaro on a bad day, but will do an extract(s) when I retrieve it!

At first, when all this broke, I was mostly indignant and a bit world-weary about it all. Authors are well known for twisting the truth and massaging it until it squeaks, but the more I have read about the duplicitousness and the acquisition of so much kudos (and money) for what would be a mediocre book at best if it weren't supposedly true - the angrier I have become. And then there's the question of whether this truly was a 'first' book and therefore eligible for the prizes and nominations it got for awards.... I don't suppose that can ever be proven but it could open the doors to more 'sideways' award winners. If all it needs to be a 'first book' is a name change - well, I might give that a try myself!

@LetsBeSensible ha- it’s very Daily Mail territory and was indeed aimed at that audience in my opinion - kind of people who go on about other people getting a job whilst doing a teeny bit of part time themselves because they’ve got a well off husband or had a bit of inheritance.

I wouldn’t see either as particularly MC, tbh. She’s the daughter of a farm herdsman/stockman who grew up sharing a farm house with extended family, he’s the son of a builder and was himself a plasterer.

Obviously Twin Souls and Children of Nature don’t have a social class, though.🙄

Admittedly he’s almost always walking further daily than the Walkers, as he is on a schedule, and walking to a pre-arranged reading that night, so can’t just sit down and decide to camp, but yes, given that he’s healthy, fit, well-nourished and only carrying his lunch, map and waterproofs, he’s quite clear on how challenging the steep ascents and descents are. Also on how boring it is at times, and how far inland you are for some stages, especially when sections have diverted inland because of erosion.

Thank you - that is a so much more rounded, relatable, experience of walking than TSP,

To have to divert inland because of erosion. This is so apt. The NT have had to close a path, made popular by Poldark, within the last few days:

Path to Cornwall beach used in Poldark shut due to injury concern - BBC News

From Raynor Winn's statement -
The dispute with Martin Hemmings, referred to in the Observer by his wife, is not the court case in The Salt Path. Nor did it result in us losing our home

shortly followed by -

A part of that settlement was that I would pay money to Mr Hemmings on a ‘non-admissions basis’. This is why we needed the money back from Cooper...

This baffles me.

Yes, it amused me too. Obviously the first statement is technically true. The court case referred to in TSP was not with Martin Hemmings. It did not directly lead to their house being repossessed. However, it absolutely did lead indirectly to their house being repossessed, as if there had been no embezzlement, there would have been no loan against their house. ‘Non admissions basis’ or not.

A working class couple who are not well-educated, swear a lot and not dressed in the folksy way the WWs do, would be subjected to long term vitriol and ostracism. As you say they'd probably be prosecuted and there wouldn't be excuses made for them like some are doing for the WWs. The Mail posters go berserk over legitimate Social Security claimants so they'd go ballistic at a working class couple exposed as con merchants.

That reminds me; is it common for those arrested for theft to avoid prosecution by paying back the money? Also, the non-disclosure agreement - does this happen much? SalRay was very lucky to get out of going to Court. I had never heard of anyone being able to silence their victim like that, outside of celebrities covering up affairs etc. She still managed to have some control even when she was in the wrong. I know the police advised the Hemmings that they'd get their money back that way but it seems like a manipulation of the justice system. Extraordinary story.

Until reading the book I was lamentably ignorant that coastal erosion was such an issue on the SWCP (I live near a coast that is very severely affected) and the lengths that have to be gone to to preserve the path, including buying land to reroute.

The SWCP is certainly not an easy undertaking and I got the strong sense that Simon was Pining for the Pennines at times, with all the challenges that area involves.

that ‘rebuttal’ just dug the hole deeper. It showed how SW goes to any lengths to try to cover up/ excuse her behaviour. I think it’s backfired massively because I’m sure most people saw through it. Of course it was the embezzlement which led to the house repossession. Just because there were a few other steps inbetween - borrowing 100k from a relative and not repaying it - doesn’t cancel out the embezzlement!

@AzureStaffyive also wondered about the avoiding prosecution. Martin Hemmings apparently didn’t want SW prosecuted, I guess because he’d got the money back and didn’t want to see a mother facing possible jail (I would imagine a custodial sentence would be the norm for embezzlement on this scale.) But just because the victim isn’t pushing for prosecution, is that enough to avoid it? Surely the public interest has to be considered too? Future employers of SW could have been at risk of the same happening, seeing as the embezzlement had been covered up…

SW stated that she wasn't charged with any crime... but maybe that was because she went AWOL, off to London begging for money from TW's relative / friend rather than presenting herself at the police station as requested.

@crossedlines "Martin Hemmings apparently didn’t want SW prosecuted, I guess because he’d got the money back and didn’t want to see a mother facing possible jail".

I forgot that bit; Martin Hemmings sounds like a nice man and more than an employer.

@Cornishwafer She would almost certainly have been charged if she hadn't done a runner, went to Timoth's relative and got the good lawyers who put the deal together. She would have been found guilty too. SalRay's a slippery customer who knew exactly what to do when in a situation that would destroy many others. How many would dare not return to the police station? Perhaps she had this plan in case anything went wrong. As others have said, this is unlikely to have been one-off behaviour and more like a pattern of deceit and forward planning.

He sounds like a lovely man but I wonder whether his decision not to have her prosecuted was influenced by the fact she repaid the money because there are limits....

Of course prosecuting her wouldn't have got his money back but presented with the funds the easiest option might have been to take them and put an end to it without further deliberation.

I’m not sure it’s that simple. Presumably he only got the money back on a ‘non admissions basis’ on the grounds that he would not then push for criminal proceedings (as communicated via the ‘fancy London lawyer’) ie. he had a choice between pursuing SW lengthily through the justice system, and possibly never getting the money back, or getting it back quickly by agreeing not to pursue charges.

If, as Ros Hemmings has said, he was seriously strapped for cash at the time, it was probably a no-brainer.

Though, as others have said , it’s not clear to me whether that would have been legally enforceable. Say if MH, having got his money back, decided not to play ball and went back to the police. Or if the police decided a crime had been committed and pursued it, regardless of MH’s wishes. It may make a difference that SW appears not to have been charged at the point when she ran off to London to beg for a loan. So no crime was officially yet ‘in the system’.

Theoretically SW could still have been investigated and potentially charged despite the repayment and Mr Hemming's wishes, though those would have been taken into account.

But given both those things I guess the CPS, following the guidance in the Code for Crown Prosecutors, would need to consider whether or not it was in the public interest to pursue the case. It does seem there was considérable évidence, which is the other test in the Code.

I'd like to think anyone accused of stealing over 60K over a period of time would be prosecuted ..it's a huge amount of money not £50 taken in a moment of madness to feed one's hungry family.

Sadly, doesn't look like that's always the case though...which could leave a perpetrator with that level of dishonesty free to commit other crimes.

Is there an easy way to access old press archives such as the photo and particulars of Pen-y-Maes when it came to market in 1992 and the photo of SW at an agricultural show in the 1960s?

Yes, that was my feeling about public interest.

It’s worrying to think this might suggest people are going to feel fairly confident they can beg or borrow money to avoid prosecution if they steal tens of thousands of pounds. And that if you do a bunk rather than follow instructions to report to the police station, it makes it even easier….

surely it’s a matter of public interest to prevent that?

Another possible inconsistency in the TSP narrative (p121-2) involving the theft of the fudge bars from a sweet shop in Polzeath.

SW swiped the 6 bars before boarding the ferry from Polzeath to Rock because she was worried apparently about not having enough money for the ferry.

However, the FB comments below from somebody who lives in Polzeath, suggests that the theft took place at a sweet shop in Rock - after they had taken the ferry.

Does it matter? In the greater scheme of things, no, but it just adds to the sense that nothing you read in TSP can be trusted as accurate!