Thread 17: 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)
Links to more Observer videos can be found in an early post of this new thread and here: Observer YouTube Channel: The Observer UK - YouTube
Working timeline and references: can be found in early posts of this new Thread 17.
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?
Threads 13-14: Links in the OP of Thread 15
Thread 15:Thread 15: To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film? | Mumsnet
Thread 16: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5395002-thread-16-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 are welcome. It would be helpful to get the background from at least some of the Observer items above before posting.
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 sixteen 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 17. I'm as in need of smelling salts as the next person.

We seek them here, we seek them there, mumsnetters seek them everywhere: just where are the elusive How not to Dal dy Dir and On Winter Hill?

#handwavium #appropriation

Keep to the path. No saltiness. May the fudge be with you.

If it's a particularly long musical solo interlude, lead singers often leave the stage. It's an opportunity to have a bit of a breather/drink/whatever.

I think it's nice that you were being an ethical Devil's Advocate.

And if someone suggested I walk a LD trail to deal with my menopause symptoms I'd have karate-chopped them on the windpipe.

I’m very much enjoying everybody’s posts, opinions and input. I believe that deconstructing everything is crucial because at the crux of it all is this person whose main objective was and still is, to deceive, manipulate and exploit whoever she can. All of this, the whole brand she has built up around herself is relevant to the discussion, I think. A lot of people have been fooled by the Raynor Winn persona, the latest in probably a long line of various other re-inventions by Sally Walker. I imagine the band was seduced by it as much as her readers and thought it would be a nice thing to welcome her aboard. She hopped on the band wagon gladly and continued adding other people’s talent to her repertoire and benefited financially whilst doing so. Every thing she added to her brand has been a rip off of somebody more worthwhile. Even the graphics and illustrations of the journal above and of course the original Lino cut illustrations by Angela Harding are presenting her as somebody she really isn’t. It’s important to remember that if she looks like a fish out of water on stage or in front of a camera, it’s because she is. It’s nothing to do with being shy or awkward and more likely because she’s dishonest and having to play somebody 24/7 .

Afternoon all. I hope you are well today.

Yes, we've had those £30 Saltlines journals on the threads before. I also remember posting about Salray commenting that her daughter was packing them up and posting them out to buyers.

I think it is fine to comment reasonably on Salray's performances. We have to remember that she had chosen to perform with Gigspanner and to keep on performing with them despite her lack of abilities. I suspect she was loving it. She gained more attention, acceptance and kudos, another opportunity to appropriate Cornwall and add 'folk music performer' to her list, it meant more publicity for her books with a new audience and another money-making iron in TSP industry fire. I will save my sympathies for all the people she duped.

the whole brand she has built up around herself

This struck me @HatStickBoots . Does anyone remember "The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady" in the late 70s/80s? It was EVERYWHERE, so much pretty slightly twee merchandise. Massive difference was that the author had been dead since 1920 and was not involved but a great deal of money was made from it.

I think Raymoth were well on the way to becoming a brand, beautiful illustrations by someone else, nattily tied neckerchiefs like a couture version of the Wurzels, collaborations here and there, fair bit of TV (Portillo, Rick Stein) Most prose authors don't gig with bands because of their persona. Signings, lit festivals and maybe if they're very lucky a film will be made but the publicity is different, they aren't the product in the way Salray and Timoth were because it was not fiction (allegedly) but their story.

The ubiquity of Raymoth would IMO only have increased if this wellness thing had happened, in whatever form. Not wise really for people who should have kept as low a profile as possible but I do wonder where it would have gone next.

nattily tied neckerchiefs like a couture version of the Wurzels

ETA that I would actually pay money to see the Walkers duet on 'I've Got a Brand New Combine Harvester.'

@Vroomfondleswaistcoat I am now mostly concentrating on her telling women that they can walk off the menopause, with extreme indignation. Menopause has such varied symptoms and of such varying degrees of severity that I think advice on how each individual managed their menopause has limited value. You can tell others how you coped with your own particular symptoms, but telling them that they just need to get more exercise is a bit unfair, particularly from someone who seems to have sailed through...Menopause was going to be sweats, brain fog, aches pains and immobility and every other symptom that she'd ever read about.
It simply didn't occur to her that...she might pass through menopause without any symptoms at all. And she's conflated all this with 'doing a lot of walking' and come up with 'walking cures everything.'

@AncientHarpy And if someone suggested I walk a LD trail to deal with my menopause symptoms I'd have karate-chopped them on the windpipe.

@Uricon2 I too think the menopause stuff is particularly egregious, nay, enraging. Mine was not bad but we all know many others aren't so lucky and there's a risk that people would put off getting needed help, which is thankfully now available, because soft lass has told them to brace up and get hiking. It's totally irresponsible.

@Gingefringe And now she also has an answer for the menopause - maybe this would have been covered in the wellness retreat as it would be a very lucrative market.

@WynkenDeWorde Just hopping back onto this thread after a long absence to note that I’m now dreading Salray's next move: Walking Through the Menopause with Raynor Winn…..possibly the start of a whole new career pivot. Please God, no.

@HatStickBoots Says she never sought to offer medical advice and writes three books doing just that and considers writing one about the Menopause and walking. Oh and the Creative wellness retreat. Here's an idea Sal: Write a series of books on the topic of how to contradict yourself in six easy lessons with the bonus book Gaslighting for Beginners.

Trigger Warning. I'm still catching up and I'm sure there are more, but I just wanted to add my own thoughts on Salray's latest invention as Menopause Healing Guru. If I and many other women going through the menopause followed Raynor Winn's advice to walk the SWCP, we may well have taken the opportunity to throw ourselves off the cliffs. I think this is perhaps the worst aspect of many women's menopause and I don't think it is talked about, or pre-menopausal women warned about it, at all or anywhere near enough. While fresh air and exercise can help with a whole range of physical and mental health issues, let's not kid ourselves or let Salray kid people, that she has come up with a cure for all the horrors for many women of the menopause, let alone for degenerative neurological conditions like CBD.

Or "I'm Not A Cider Maker" ?

She's conflated 'I went for a long walk during my menopause' and 'I suffered no adverse symptoms during my menopause'. This isn't cause and effect, it's two very separate things. The likelihood is that she would have suffered no adverse symptoms if she'd sat in a chair for five years (although I do not recommend this as a treatment during menopause).

I have had a very smooth and almost symptomless menopause. Therefore I feel I have no right to wade in on discussions about how those who are having a bad time are treating their symptoms.

Basically, butt out, Sally, you have no idea what you're talking about.

@hatstickboots mentions "a fish out of water". That made me think of SW's memorable description of being at Land's End, where apparently the waves were throwing fish into the air. To those more knowledgeable than I, does this really happen at Lands End?

Agreed, Vroom. It’s rather like me attributing my lack of severe symptoms to having a dog and recommending everyone get one. I mean, i do recommend dogs for all sorts of reasons but i keep schtum about other women’s menopauses, because i know how lucky i am in that respect.

I do think you are all being awful in wilfully misinterpreting Dr SalRay’s medical advice. She does not advise simply “walking” the menopause or CBD off. You must also give up home, work and carry out the occasional theft.
It’s important that anyone thinking of walking themselves better is completely unavailable for paid work and is living rough. It may well be this and the thrill of claiming benefits fraudulently which has the greater effect!

We have seen dolphins there and at other spots around the southern coast so they’re coming up and out of the water. When the sea is very rough we do sometimes see the little black headed gulls swooping down and fishing from the waves coming into our local bay, which makes me think that it’s probable to see that happen at Lands End too.

I can imagine the complaints from Salray if the fish didn't deliver themselves filleted, battered, cooked and wrapped in paper into their waiting laps.

The list of people they've annoyed and more than annoyed seems ever growing and now includes such varied folk as the Poet Laureate and potentially all women who are going through/have gone through menopause. I'm picturing the great chase scene at the end of the Blues Brothers in the unlikely event this is ever filmed.

Yes, it happens when there is a feeding frenzy. Some of the fish leap out of the water and you see a flash of silver. I have seen it when I am on a sailing boat.

Are they usually driven inshore by a predator/predator chain offshore?

I'm imagining something more like the chase scenes in the Benny Hill show, with the music playing.

😂

I have seen it out at sea and also, just as @HatStickBoots describes, with the black-headed gulls on the tidal river.

There are sometimes huge shoals of fish and I have seen gannets streaking past, dozens and dozens, very purposeful. If you follow their direction you then see the dolphins breaking the surface as they feed and guillemots in their little rafts ....

@DisappointedReader She gained more attention, acceptance and kudos, another opportunity to appropriate Cornwall and add 'folk music performer' to her list, it meant more publicity for her books with a new audience and another money-making iron in TSP industry fire. I will save my sympathies for all the people she duped.

Thanks for acknowledging this - I think it should be kept in perspective but some of us do feel this.

I love the sea off Cornwall. We took late DH's grandchildren when they were little and they were amazed by the colours of it and how it moved and swirled, only being familiar with the North Sea off East Anglia at that point, which has its own charm but is prone to leaden greyness quite a lot of the time.

(Pass me a mic and I'll recreate it as a spoken word piece. Only joking!)

Well I hope I've helped alleviate everybody's menopausal symptoms with the descriptions of nature, tonight. 😈

When you put it like that, it’s actually quite funny that a woman who spent more of her life about as far from the coast as you can get in the UK than coastally has turned into a sort of Spokesperson for the Sea.

She owns the sea and the salt, the wind and the fog. Oh, and the path. They are hers alone.

Funny, I got married first time in Cornwall, stayed in Mousehole. I remember reading/being told that in such villages many of the old fishermens cottages faced inland to protect them from the weather and because the occupants saw quite enough of the sea while sailing on it for work and were unbothered by a view over more practical concerns.

I'm a Midlander by birth and childhood holidays had the excited shouts of "I can see the sea" as we arrived, it had magic. I wouldn't ever think I knew more about it than people who have been there all their lives, especially when just based on a longish walk.