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.

But the physical book bought online will still have the misleading blurb. Which is why I don’t think they will change anything until/if there’s a new edition. It may well be that much will depend on whether they’re going to publish OWH or not, and what form that will take, so that the message is the same across all four books. I mean, it may be that SW is hard at work on a rewrite, or on a foreword that will go into all books. Now that is something I’d be fascinated to see drafts of.

And especially for a 50ish woman and a man with a recent diagnosis of cbd who has trouble putting a coat on etc

Which is why most people get the knacker man round. Or they use an actual digger in the case of animals that they can't bear to send off - a backhoe will dig a deep enough hole.

I suspect that the Walkers sent their pet off for dog food but wouldn't admit it because it's not as picturesque. If you bury something as big as a sheep, then (even leaving legalities aside) unless you dig a VERY deep hole it's going to come back to the surface. Foxes and dogs will dig it up if gases don't do the job.

It’s the free-spiritedness. Ill man with a horrible diagnosis can bury beloved sheep, walk LD paths, charm the St Ives public with a Beowulf busk, but can’t do prosy, dull, drone-like, non-free spirit things like hold down a job, represent them in court, go into council accommodation etc.

I’m still interested in why it wasn’t TW representing them in court, assuming the legal case named them both rather than just SW. If he hadn’t been able to work for some time, there was nothing to prevent him, and all of SW’s descriptions of him in the books (which, in fairness are borne out by their RL interview personae) suggest he’s the confident talker, the one better at dealing with the world, whereas she’s shy and inarticulate in comparison. So why wasn’t he the courthouse front man?

I was watching a podcast yesterday where a journalist was telling how she had an appointment to meet up with Sally and Tim at their cider farm to interview about the new books (pre all this blowing up) and there was a 'change of plan'. and she met Sally elsewhere with Tim nowhere in evidence.

I wonder if Tim is a bit prone to going 'off piste' and saying things he shouldn't (or that might give away too much)?

@Pissenlit So why wasn’t he the courthouse front man?

Probably for the same reason he is rarely in interviews, he may be too eloquent and makes things up (or tells too much truth) because he wants to be entertaining.

It’s so interesting to read all your knowledgable posts on the topic of the old ewe, her death, subsequent burial and consequences if not done correctly. The reality is quite gruesome really. I now cannot believe that this happened at all. Did she Google “emotional hooks in storytelling” and apply every single one she found? The whole damned book relies on them.

True children of nature and people who work with animals are fully aware that death is a very big part of life and that nature is not just poetic words and staring out at the view, it is also a mucky, smelly and sometimes heartbreaking experience as well. You just have to enjoy the good bits and make peace with the rest. Bit like the rest of life

I'm wondering if PRH might be liable under these Consumer Protection Laws?

"Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations

The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations (SI 2008/1977) (CPRs) generally prohibits unfair commercial practices. A commercial practice is unfair if it contravenes the requirements of professional diligence and materially distorts the economic behaviour of the average consumer in relation to a product (or is likely to do so) (regulation 3, CPRs).

Commercial practices are misleading if they give false information which deceives (or is likely to deceive) the average consumer and causes or is likely to cause him to take a transactional decision that he would not otherwise have taken (even if the information given is factually correct) (regulation 5, CPRs).

Commercial practices are misleading if, taking into account the circumstances of the commercial practice and the medium used to communicate it, they omit, hide, disguise or delay material information so as to cause the average consumer to take a transactional decision that they would not otherwise have made (regulation 6, CPRs).

From this webpage
gadlegal.co.uk/news/commercial-law/misleading-websites-oft-takes-action/

Yes, I imagine that Tim does like to go off piste! He might be difficult for Sally to control, jumping up at people, chasing his tail, dashing off after other dogs and tumbling around playing and generally making a huge noise!
Sorry - I went off piste myself then, imagining Sally on an episode of “Training dogs the Woodhouse way” with Moth, a wildly out of control Burmese mountain dog.

It's a good piece and has a nice witty but at the end.

@RainyTuesdaysAndSunnyWednesdays true, I forgot she was from a farming background.
Yes, likely she played to the gallery of romantic middle class notions of farming life.

Yes, I just meant that she has apparently used this event in her previous writing. Her decision to apply it again in TSP makes me think that her emotions have been made up. I cannot imagine anybody with genuine feelings for a beloved animal, wanting to exploit this situation.
I agree with everything you’ve said, which is why I am struggling with this. We know the author is a liar and cheat, this is fact. The story she has written concerns two characters who I believe are largely fictional and the author knows which strings to pull to achieve a successful story.

I think that's true but I also wonder if they both were wary of exposing MothTim to public scrutiny. For such a sick man he looked very well and a savvy interviewer might have read up about CBD and asked awkward questions. Keeping him away from interviews enhanced the sickness narrative: too ill to even talk. Perhaps SalRay is a better liar than her husband too.

Agree. My grandfather was a countryman, brought up on a (proper) farm although he didn't take it over ( there's a story around how it was passed on that would shame Game of Thrones, if true) He was not cruel, quite a softie for a man born during the reign of Victoria, but he was utterly unsentimental about what was involved in keeping animals and their purpose and that death was part of that. An example was the fact that if eg a chicken had to be despatched, he did it because he could do it properly, ie quickly and painlessly with minimal distress caused.

I fear Grampy would have had little time for Raymoth in general and their ideas around rural life particularly.

I get that the printed book will still have the misleading blurb, and I agree that until a new print run/edition is produced PRH aren't likely to do anything. Assuming there is a new print run, of course! However, I agree with @SimoArmo and others that the website description can and should be changed. That's what people shopping online are basing their purchase decision on, after all. Even if all that changes is the removal of any references to 'honest' or 'true', that would be better than nothing.

I did laugh at this sentence in a review of TSP from July: "I must confess I only bought the book as I have been following a long thread on mumsnet that that both has intrigued and frustrated me." Donna M, come on in, the water's lovely 😉

Yes. It's much easier to tell convincing lies about someone when that person is rarely seen and so you can't see anything that would contradict the narrative. The Wizard of Oz works from behind the curtain.

Well, yes. When I say ‘child of nature’, I’m being sarcastic at the expense of SW’s hokily-written post-Romantic ‘I am only at home in the wild!’ nonsense. I grew up in the aftermath of the loss of the family farm (long and ugly story, like the one you reference, @Uricon2), and we had hens, which I dispatched completely unsentimentally as necessary. And eating the annual calf-with-a-name.

I get entirely why TW was kept away from the press after the publication of TSP, but I don’t think the same criteria apply at all for him not fronting the litigation in person in the court case. He didn’t have a diagnosis yet, so no need to ‘play ill’, and in any case being ill or well would have made no difference to the case. And the case was apparently primarily being fought primarily on delaying tactics, or arguing about the source of the loan, so hard to see why a tendency to charm or invent would have made a difference. SW wasn’t being cross-examined, she was just dragging her feet legally to buy time. There was no public scrutiny for TW to need to avoid at that time.

From her 'One Show' performance I'd say that SW is a master of deflection..the fake smile and immediate return to script after JI said that they had been conned out of everything. She's well versed in deflection I'd guess.

Maybe it was something to do with her having done two years of a part time law degree? Though I can't really see how this would have helped.
And yes, I agree that child of nature should only ever be used sarcastically

I seem to remember Tim being described (in an article or video) as 'insecure' or 'not very confident' while working as a gardener in Plas yn Rhiw. I can't find it now. Can anyone confirm?

She also has no problem with flat out refusing to answer questions even when pushed eg about Moth's real name, which I found unusual for the persona she was trying to portray.

This came up during the A Million Little Pieces scandal, I remember. Admittedly, that was US consumer law, obviously (though it was published in the UK by John Murray, now an imprint of Hachette, I don’t think any action was taken to offer reader refunds etc outside the US). But, from what I remember, it’s more complicated than it may seem on a couple of grounds. There’s a legal grey area about what precise material (taglines, back cover, inside cover, quotes from reviews etc) strictly constitutes ‘advertising’, and in order for someone to make a case to prove it misled them, they would need to establish that they literally never bought fiction.

I think someone linked on here to a source that described him as not being confident/forthcoming about his gardening ideas/knowledge, and saying he needed direction.

That was from Ann(?) Hemmings, Martin Hemmings's widow. I think in one of the Observer videos.