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.

Very well worked out. More proof - along with the publicity photo. Well Penguin want to know these things:

The publishers will be glad to correct any errors or omissions in future editions.

I wonder what they'd do if we started to inundate them with all the inaccuracies?

Let’s not forget the real victim in this - the future wandering poets, expecting to be greeted with warmth and homemade goodies along their route, finding doors shut and curtains closed, whispers of “not being taken in by one of those types for a second time!” as they tramp defeatedly into a Londis for a packet of monster munch to sustain them!

Yes. SW will fall by the wayside because she has no merit. Simon’s writing is the complete opposite, just as he is the complete opposite in character.

If nobody had been expecting SA yet… presumably he was always two weeks behind the Walkers… why were the Walkers being greeted with home baked cakes on the path? I have not looked at his Facebook or other social media pages but presumably his PA posted updates of where he was on the route in any given day. I wonder if there are any posts on there about him having silver hair now, unexpectedly and if pretending not to be himself 🤔

SA made up ground on the Walkers - they were around 18 days ahead of him at Combe Martin but by the time they reached Land's End they were only 2 days ahead of him.

And he wasn’t spontaneous about his daily mileage — his schedule was set out well in advance, as readings, overnight hosts etc had to be pre-arranged, publicised etc. I seem to remember a bit (was it when his back was giving him trouble?) where he had to skip ahead to make a pre-arranged reading, then returned the next day to walk the skipped bit of route.

So it wasn’t that someone was updating his varying daily progress on SM, it was that exactly where he would be on each date and his daily walk was determined well in advance.

I've been trying to work out if Moth did indeed do the Beowulf reading in St Ives as described in TSP.

He read from the start of the poem to around line 600, which would have taken him around 20-25 minutes. Quite long for a public recital! Where he is described giving the reading (near a delicatessan) is where a lot of buskers perform during the St Ives Festival (although you don't need a license to busk or perform in Cornwall), performers during the festival collect money in buckets provided by the St Ives Festival organisers. So I guess it's possible.

Would St Ives have been crowded early in the week in the days running up to the festival (14-28 Sept 2013)? Out of school holidays, I'm not so sure. There aren't any acts to see before the festival starts so no real reason why St Ives would be crowded.

However, I note that the copy of Beowulf (the Heaney translation from 2000) which appears in SW's IG feed looks pretty pristine and it's quite heavy - 250g! So who knows!

A pristine copy of Beowulf eh?

Yes and relevant articles linked to his website for that itinerary, this from May 22, 2013:

Simon Armitage to walk South West Coast Path as a modern troubadour - Latest News - South West Coast Path

I would suspect that TW was - not exactly mistaken for SA but that someone once asked the question. Either 'ooh, have you heard of that SA who's walking the coast path?' or 'there's a poet doing the same as you.' It put the idea into SW's head and she built the whole 'being mistaken for SA into the narrative. There's always a faint chance that one person, once, asked if TW was SA, because a lot of people wouldn't have the faintest idea what SA looks like but might have heard he was walking the coast path. But I can't believe that the level of interest was such that people would assail an unknown random bloke with goodies and money for a reading when they probably wouldn't have done it for SA either, unless they knew for a fact it was him (ie, he told them he was).

If TW pretended to be SA, as opposed to simply being mistaken for SA, that's just a different kind of fraud.

On the poster advertising Simon's reading in Combe Martin (shared above by @Catwith69lives ) there is the logo for Combe Martin museum. The Tourist Information point is based there, I can't find out whether it was in 2013. Even if it wasn't, it would seem reasonable to assume there would have been one there too, complete with picture of the unMothlike poet himself.

As everyone is saying, it is impossible to believe that anyone working there would think that a silver haired man randomly rocking up over 2 weeks early would be him.

Or indeed ANY silver haired man rocking up at any point other than when Our Simon was expected! I've done a few author things in the past and when I'm booked to appear somewhere I sort of sidle up to the person on the desk and say 'Um, I'm Vroomfondle - I think you're expecting me?' Never yet has anyone looked at my poster, looked at me and shrieked 'oh, you must be Vroomfondle! Come on in, here is tea and cake!' Because if they are wrong, then everyone just looks a bit daft.

So in order to really be mistaken for SA, then TW would have had to tell them he was SA...

Someone in an earlier thread disputed the veracity of this as the trek back to get the book was lengthy/arduous.

If I’m right about the campsite being right out at the Zennor end of the town, just off the coastal path, it would have been a bit of a trek to get the book. I mean, not an impossibly long walk, but not something I’d have done on a whim, if I were tired, had a disabling neurological condition, and/or was worried about being seen sneaking onto a campsite I hadn’t paid for, unless I were very sure it was going to pay off financially.

Am I right in thinking they sneaked onto the ‘back’ of the campsite from the SWCP, rather than go in via the reception, and pitched their tent right at the back of the back field, closest to the SWCP?

You are completely right. I was thrown by this when I first read it in TSP (for these threads).

You have said you like to know how readers read (by attending a book club) - well I had to learn how writers write to understand this. Here is the extract:

"We left the path and headed up the hill, through a gate and into the final field in a long string of fields that made up a caravan and camping site above the town."

I know where they are so I had been 'accompanying' them as I read. I am then confused, because you wouldn't know there were a long string of fields if you entered from the coast path. So I thought, at first, they had come up from the town and through the residential area.

She writes this as if she is the peregrine looking down. I had to get used to this all-knowing way of writing that comes from looking it up on a map, probably three to five years later!

The reason this would be arduous is the same as I shared the Great Hangman, last night, it is very steep - whichever way you walk.

I wondered whether some variant of the "busking Beowulf" scene really happened during the Walkers' 2013 walk - it's the kind of thing that they might have tried if they found themselves without money in a town with lots of buskers - and the whole Simon Armitage story was later developed around it. Maybe somebody who heard the Beowulf recital even asked "hang about, are you Simon Armitage?" As always, one is unsure how worthwhile it is speculating on part of the narrative being true when there's a strong possibility it's nearly all invented.

How green was my valley
How pristine was his Beowulf

My Simon Armitages have arrived and réadiing the first few pars of Walking Home is giving me sentimental goosebumps of connection and anticipation of the pleasure to follow.

This Instagram account, is it all still up and running or did you save the photo of “Moth” while it was @Catwith69lives ?
I am puzzled as to why this portrait of him was so staged… surely the point of a portrait of Moth would be to have him sitting there with his beloved, battered copy of his favourite book. Favourite books that you religiously carry on every trip (one version) or that you happened to have in your hand when your daughter told you to - just take that one Dad - while you dithered in the library feeling overwhelmed with shock and despair and indecision (another version)….. are integral to a personal portrait aren’t they?
(Sorry for the long winded sentence.)
Who thought it a good idea to pose him with a pristine copy? His wife?
Well a picture really does say a thousand words, even if they aren’t the ones you hoped.

Yes its still on her IG feed

I found this piece written at the time of SA's walk, I hope I have put a link, it states that SA published his itenary on his website so all would know his movements, I think the photo shows how different Moth and Simon look, I don't think anyone would confuse them.

www.writeoutloud.net/public/blogentry.php?blogentryid=38828

Simon Armitage was pretty unknown in 2013. Few, apart from poetry afficionados, would have recognised him in the street.

He wasn't appointed Professor of Poetry at Oxford until 2015 and Poet Laureate until 2019. The only way anybody would have known who SA was, was by the photos on the small promo posters or by asking him. Nobody in their right minds, would just assume that a bloke in his 50s with a rucksack on the SWCP was SA.

It's about context too, isn't it? I knew what SA looked like in 2013 but if I'd passed him in the street (or on a path) I'd very likely not have registered it was him, especially if he was in walking gear and a hat.

There's a story I read years ago about a woman helping out a nice American couple struggling with their map in London, a bit lost. It only after she went on her way that she suddenly realised she'd been talking to Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward.

The thing is that Simon Armitage was due to give his poetry readings in the museum at Combe Martin on Sat 31 Aug 2013 and the tourist information centre is in the museum. So if the promo material had been circulated beforehand to the museum/tourist centre, the three women who worked there would have been best placed to know what SA looked like and when he was due to arrive. Why would he suddenly materialise in Combe Martin museum out of the blue 18 days ahead of schedule?

If they weren't sure, then surely they'd say something along the lines of "Are you Simon Armitage by any chance? We weren't expecting your for another two and a half weeks!"

Yes @Catwith69lives , especially if they had a poster with his face on it up, which seems highly likely!

I'm more and more inclined to think that this is not so much a running "gag" as an invitation to worship at the shrine of Timmoth's "charisma". He's so marvellous that he has old ladies giggling, foodstuffs are pressed upon him, he enthralls the populace of St Ives with his rendition of Beowulf, he may as well be a respected poet because he's so wonderful, no surprise people mistake him for one (even though he bears not the slightest physical resemblance)

Salray hero worships him in a way that is most unusual for a long marriage and even Jason Isaacs seems to have been entranced, so he's clearly got something.

I've told this story elsewhere so apologies. One of my old university lecturers was in Jerusalem in the early 60s for study. He knew Oskar Schindler, he said slightly. He first met him at a party where an very ordinary man, a bit shabby and no longer young walked in and within 5 minutes, without doing anything to draw attention to himself, he was surrounded by people, including pretty young women, all hanging off his every word. My tutor said at that time few people knew who he was and what he had done, so it wasn't that. He also said he was the most charismatic human being he ever met and "the air changed" when OS came into a room.

Funny thing, I suppose such magnetism can be used for good or ill or nothing much in particular, it just "is", although I think in Timmoth's case it is more studied in the way he presents himself.