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 anyone’s interested in an account of walking the Coast to Coast path, I really liked Jenn Ashworth’s The Parallel Path.

@Fandango52 really glad you're enjoying!.

@Words I don't think you're regret it! Before turning to WH in the throes of sepsis, I'd only read some of his poetry and I know what you mean, I instantly "took" to him. Fascinating that you know that area and confirm the pitfalls. He really does give a sense of When Walking Goes Bad (while managing to laugh at himself) and certainly struggles with the maps, even with a degree in Geography.

It's a pity he's said there will be no more long walks but he was really struggling with his back towards the end of the SWCP one and understandable. Perhaps we could persuade him to do a gentle pootle Portillo type thing, 'In the Footsteps of Raymoth' where he meets disgruntled cafe and campsite owners, misrepresented Australians, Bill Cole etc.

It was mentioned on a much earlier thread, but if anyone likes Walking Home/Walking Away I highly recommend Stuart Maconie's books about his travels in the UK. I've been reading him for years and it doesn't surprise me that he's a friend of SA, from long before the latter became PL.

Thanks again @Uricon2. :)

Am going to order. I hope your health is improving by the way. I've been very unwell too and could really do with something to get my teeth into. A vicarious journey in my favourite and most familiar part of the world.

Stuart Maconie ? Did he write about pies or am I hallucinating?

Ah, "Pies and Prejudice" is really about visiting many places in the North of England. He does love a punning title but the book is excellent. He also did one about the South (Adventures on the High Teas, told you) and rewalked the route of the Jarrow March (Long Road from Jarrow)

Thank you for asking, getting there although I've been told it will be a minimum of 6 months before reaching my version of normal. I very much hope you are on the mend too.

Ditto from the south coast of the peninsula. Just arrived back from witnessing the Kernowfornia rock festival where ageing rockers are de rigueur.

As you and @WorthySloth say, I don't think there is anything about Raymoths presentation that would have made them stand out from a myriad of other middle aged walkers, unless they made a public show of themselves.

Full disclosure. My late DM and DF went on a day out in the Peaks while dating. She was in a suit with a pencil skirt, winklepicker heels and a beehive hairdo. Dad sported a suit and tie. They decided, for some reason known only to themselves, to "walk up" Thorpe Cloud the hard way. As they got to the top (summited, really) they were met by the astonished gaze of a party of proper walkers enjoying their sandwiches. TBH, as far as public shows go, it's a good one.

It also set the pattern for many family holidays to come that always seemed to involve cliffs, incoming tides and a general lack of expecting weather.

@Uricon2 . OMG. Her feet!
But it would have been called a costume, not a suit?
My mother had a French phrase book preserved from a trip to Paris in the early 50s, sadly now lost.
One of them was " where may I see a mannequin parade of summer fashions."

I came across an article where the writer accompanies Simon on part of the SWCP. This certainly gave me a 'flavour' when SA says: "The ice cream van at Appledore" - I immediately want a Hocking's 'oyster'!

I cannot stress how much more authentic this feels than TSP. Also, I have met the author of this piece who seems very good - he married the vicar's daughter.

It also addresses how SA was 'paid' - very different to that described in the LL extract shared by @Divegirl65

Walking with Simon Armitage – Cole Moreton

It probably was! "What the Well Dressed Hikette is Wearing This Year". I wonder if her heels acted as crampons.

These are the same parents who, on the battlements of Carisbrooke Castle, decided to wander off and only a little later realise they were missing the 3 year old, who was leaning over the edge precariously, as too small to be protected by the rail. I actually remember this and it is possibly why I'm not good with heights.

The 1960s were another country and they did things differently there 😂

Thanks so much @BeguiledSilence , great piece.

It's the difference between the authentic and inauthentic, isn't it? People who have something that they must hide and others opening up, even if they are by nature quite private, because their experience doesn't need a spin on it.

Just finished reading that piece, thank you @BeguiledSilence and I couldn’t agree with you more.

I wasn't expeecting this from the other side of the world:

“We have always believed in the goodness of people,” says Jo, “so it’s just knocked us for six to realise that Raynor played so dirty.”

How this Aussie couple became caught up in the literary scandal of the decade

To add to the above article, I shared. When @RainyTuesdaysAndSunnyWednesdays asked the question as follows:

Also, as you ask: If you could ask Salray one question that she had to answer with the absolute truth (as opposed to 'her' truth), what would it be?

Have you any empathy with those for whom you have tried to change their truth, the truth - for your truth?

This is why, as well as the huge topics of the illness and the homelessness, the details of the walk have always been important to me. Another quote from Jo:

How dare she rewrite our history? Nothing she said about us was true. We had to start defending ourselves to all the people who were reading the book. It was hurtful, disappointing and unnecessary.”

I’m so pleased articles about SW and MW are continuing to be published. This paragraph from the Australian article struck a chord with me as I’ve always considered MW’s symptoms might be psychological in origin.

Says Fenner: “The patient’s symptoms are described as atypical for CBD and, more importantly, are mostly subjective. In each letter, the neurologist is puzzled by the lack of ­symptom progression in what is normally a worsening condition. Based on these documents, I would not rule out the possibility that this patient’s neurological symptoms are due to psychological disturbance rather than a neurological disease.”

Thanks so much for the share @BeguiledSilence . It doesn't sound as if David and Jo Parsons were an awful lot better off than Raymoth and I totally believe they shared their (true) story and the latter didn't, even though they could have told the "official" tale where nothing is ever their fault. There was certainly no need to make a pleasant encounter into another excuse for a character assassination. Really poor.

If the Parsons ever write a book, I'll buy it!

Dipped into LL this afternoon and noticed two interesting claims regarding SA: 1) They were only days and at some points hours ahead of SA on his walk from Minehead to LE 2) Such was the anticipation amongst locals on the SWCP of SA's imminent arrival that Raymoth were frequently the beneficiaries of mistaken identity in the form of cakes, pastries and all manner of tasty home cooked goodies intended for SA, all of which they accepted and consumed with gusto. Curious, if the case, that none of this featured in TSP where their diet was primarily noodle and fudge based!⁹

I think the answer to that is they made it all up, TBH. I haven't worked out the timeline but I think it's suss that they claim SA was so close behind, prepared to be wrong. I also think now that though that a good portion (at least) of TSP walk was done in 2015.

Interesting too that LL was published in 2022, by which time SA was PL and a more well known figure, from whom more strange bragging rights about the "mistaken identity" could be extracted. It's a really odd way of going on, really.

I am intrigued that the article says:

"The Australian Weekend Magazine has obtained copies of doctors’ letters concerning Moth Winn’s neurological symptoms – since posted in redacted versions on Raynor Winn’s social media account as proof of her husband’s medical disorder."

Ooo.. good spot.

The Australian Weekend Magazine has obtained copies of doctors’ letters concerning Moth Winn’s neurological symptoms – since posted in redacted versions on Raynor Winn’s social media account as proof of her husband’s medical disorder. The magazine has established the reports were written by neurological consultants at the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board in the northern Welsh city of Bangor. They cast doubt over the validity of the couple’s claim that Moth Winn’s ­corticobasal degeneration (CBD) began in 2005 and was pronounced terminal in 2015. “On examination,” reads one report from June 2015, “[Winn] looks young for his years and has an ­entirely normal demeanour. He has a normal stride and retained postural reflexes. There is no obvious abnormality of tone or strength.”

Interesting.

Does anyone know if “psychological disturbance” is Psychologist for “entirely made up”?

I'd guess that the journalist asked the Walkers questions about the health diagnosis, and the Walkers responded by sending The Letters. By the time the rebuttal tirade was produced, some second thoughts had been had and some redactions were made. Just a guess and may be wrong.

I am surprised that the Australian Weekend has so much more information. Maybe they think it is in the public interest? It is this: "obtained copies of doctors' letters" - it sounds more mysterious ....

I think she spoke these words in one of the video q&as as well...it's as if we can track how she continually embellishes stories over time.