Thread 18: To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film?

[DisappointedReader]

Hello all. I've simplified the opening post as I don't think we need to keep reposting all the links, timelines and so on at this stage of proceedings.

The Observer's original exposé: The real Salt Path: how a blockbuster book and film were ...
First thread: To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film? | Mumsnet
Links to threads 2-16, the other 20 Observer articles and videos to date, Raynor Winn/Sally Walker's statement, our timeline and sources can all be accessed in the OP and first few posts of Thread 17: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5403285-thread-17-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 exposé items 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 drive-by scolders 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 17 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.

Now three months in, if these threads could wear slogan t-shirts they would be Mark Twain's often misquoted 'The report of my death was an exaggeration'. Applications in writing from correspondents seeking supply parcels of fudge and cider will be tolerated.

Here we are again
Disappointed as can be
All good pals and jolly good company
Strolling round the path
Happy on a spree
All good pals and jolly good company

Never mind the weather, never mind the rain
Now that we're together, whoops we go again!
Whoops, we go again
La-di-da-di-da, la-di-da-di-dee
All good pals and jolly good company

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

@PullTheBricksDown

"or that a mysterious man appeared and invited them back to his mansion for lasagne and a massage in the warm."

The episode of the mansion and beautiful girls giving massages reads like a scene from a James Bond film in the Sean Connery days. Or a plain old hallucination.

I’ve thought of doing the same thing… especially the part where the strange interlude with lasagnes and Bond beauties appears. According to TSP Moth was mistaken for Simon there… but at no time in Walking Away did our Simon mention this particular place to stay en route. As we know, his walk with places to stay, was meticulously planned.
Incidentally, the Bond girls and lasagne interlude serves a few narrative purposes. One, it might have been added as a token gesture for any male readers whose interest has waned (see also girl on beach stripping down to red bikini). Two, it enables “Ray” to confide her thoughts to the female readers, where she body shames herself by comparing herself to them and fishes for sympathy. Three, the reader is allowed a glimpse of what Moth and Ray’s marriage and relationship is like and how Ray feels ever so slightly inferior to Moth (women are bound to relate, thinks Sal). She’s feeling her age and feeling sorry for herself and trying not be jealous. Is the author trying to create mixed feelings in the reader by at once making them feel sorry for Moth at first but even more sorry for Ray who has to cope with being the dowdy spouse of an enigmatic and vigorous man which then sours the reader’s relationship with Moth who doesn’t exactly reassure her… but then he is dying isn’t he? goes round in circles Help!

The Grant and his beauties bit is such a bizarre interlude and I think you have really nailed it @HatStickBoots . She is simultaneously peacocking the wonder of her husband Timoth and at the same time her own fears about aging. I have never felt that a marriage of such duration would idealise the other partner in the way she does, it simply seems odd to me. Love yes, hero worship and idealise, no and I do wonder if there isn't a generous dollop of resentment, which is ridiculous as Salray looks fine and Timoth isn't a young Paul Newman, but if she feels "unworthy" or "less", it is how she feels. I don't think there is sense to be made of it TBH. Herr Doctor Freud might have been stumped. I have a strong feeling that the real Mrs Sue A would have had little truck with this scenario, though.

One bit of Simon's WA really intrigued me, he spent a night at the Camelot Castle hotel. A friend stayed there (beautiful position) and was weirded out, apparently the owners are Scientologists/Trump fans/Q Anon supporters and make it very obvious. The owner (Scientologist in chief) regaled Simon with much rhetoric but he was going down with something and had a (rare on the path) drink with him as well as having consumed medicinal remedies. I think he was adopting if not an antic disposition a one where he could tactfully opt out of the nonsense (I applaud him for it)

The way SalRay meditates on the Grant episode and the ongoing SA mistaken identity seems like she is laying the groundwork for what is to come in her rebuttal statement.

The names they have been using are theirs, there are perfectly good reasons for them being called Moth and Raynor Winn. It is churlish of us to suppose this was any kind of deception. It couldn't be helped that they accepted hospitality that was meant for Simon ...?

Moth says to Grant: Call me what you like, mate, we’re just grateful for the hospitality.’

It can't be their fault if they have been mistaken for anyone else ... but all obeisance: proferring of baked goodies, buying of their books, watching their film, is just rightful homage to them....

If I’m right in my memory of the film, Grant (played by Trent Crimm from Ted Lasso, who is rather devastating, and seems odd casting for a bald, skinny, pinkish man in bad shorts) invites them to his house solely because he believes TW is SA, and (it’s implied) boots them out again fairly quickly when he realises they aren’t.

Unlike the book, where TW recites a poem he’d heard from his dad and they stay the night and leave with breakfast…?

All very very odd. I wondered at the time of watching the film why that scene was so different. There was a lot that in the book that was edited out or condensed for convenience but the scene in question didn’t even choose a similar looking actor and was a very different outcome, as discussed and I wonder why. Were there too many questions asked about identities? If those people were going to come forward and have something to say, they surely would have by now, even before the film.
I agree about the relationship on the page as Ray and Moth and wonder how it differs from reality. Is she trying extra hard to convince her husband (and her audience) she loves and worships him because in reality he has turned away from her in the past due to her criminality? Her actions would surely have cracked most marriages if one party is not aware of the other’s doings? Is this ego flattering garbage on the page suppose to placate him in reality, some kind of penance? Or is it purely for the audience, the reader? Here I am, baring my heart and soul for my man, my soul mate. This is what an everlasting relationship should be like, hotly passionate and lovingly exclusive from beginning to end til death parts you etc etc
I suppose this is all borrowed from romantic fiction over the centuries. When I read it, I admit I loved them all the more for this, and when you fall in love with someone/a couple you believe to be real, you are of course invested in them and that’s what she wanted.

Eek! I thought things had gone quiet here and searched the thread up and somehow I’m not watching it 😱 no idea how that happened. Anyway, is there any cider and fudge left to sustain me while I catch up?

Its a bit frustrating that we still don't really know what bits of the SWCP they walked and when they walked them apart from the Minehead to Land's End section in Aug/Sept 2013.

Apart from the Parsons at the FAC on 9 Aug 2015 and a few photos from Dorset/Devon (which could be 2014,2015 or 2016) there are no confirmed encounters with Raymoth between LE and Poole.

Begs the question why the disparity in the number of photos taken on the stretch between Minehead and LE in 2013 and the complete lack of any photos of the Cornish section of SWCP on the south coast?

I'm sure we can go out and nick some fudge for you! Did you bring the swag bag?

Probably the old ‘Our phone was ancient and we never got much chance to charge it, and anyway we’re too unworldly Children of Nature to be able to do tech — and Children of Nature never take selfies in scenic places! The horror! excuse.

I caught a few minutes of that tv show Hunted recently and amused myself by imagining the team of hammy actor-investigators at HQ on the Walkers’ trail during their supposed second stint on the path, tracking their mobile signal to nowhere near the SWCP, or catching them on an ATM camera in Peebles or Norwich.

I'd guess that this scene (not seen the film either - I really am a fraud on these threads!) is changed to add a bit more 'disadvantage' to the couple - how cruel of him to shove them out! And also a bit of a downside to being mistaken for SA - being found out. Because if they'd filmed it as it really (allegedly) happened, then it's casting aspersions on Sal and Tim (for not confessing the truth and benefiting significantly from what is, in essence, fraud) and also Lovely Simon (who isn't all that likely to have succumbed to being taken in by a bevy of beauties for a 'massage' ahem ahem).

I wonder if Simon making it clear that he did NOT want to be referred to as PL in the film (because he wasn't at the time) made them more cautious about how the Grant incident was handled.

Very good point @Vroomfondleswaistcoat that it would have shown them benefiting, albeit in a most peculiar way, from not denying the 'mistaken identity' to the point it looks rather...fraudulent.

I’ve been studying both books (TSP and Walking Away) side by side this morning, on this section of the walk. TSP seems to veer into soft porn territory as soon as “Moth” gets blonde hair swished around his head and shoulders and is told that his muscles are tense. If this part of the book is true and this Grant really was the SM* savvy entrepreneur he claims to be and really was lying in wait for our Simon (like The Spider and the Fly) then he would absolutely have known that Moth was not Simon. If he had never read poetry in his life would he even have known about Simon Armitage and therefore concocted a means to waylay him? If he had known about Simon’s walk as he claims, then he would know him when he saw him.

• Grant says that photos with Simon would be used as a means to advertise his business on SM
• he asks specifically if they have already got arrangements to stay somewhere so this implies that “he” or maybe just the author herself… knows the purpose of Simon’s walk and how he has planned it.

I can understand why this was cut and edited in the film. The big difference being that in the film, Raynor confirms that Moth is not Simon. The whole scene fades away awkwardly after that. In the book, they stay the night, are plied with bacon sandwiches the next day and Moth refuses to quell Ray’s anxieties about what had happened between he and the women.

In TSP, leading up to this scene (which turns out to be somewhat of an oasis) they have run out of water and are having a fight. The author’s language becomes even more histrionic at this point and on the page she even confesses that she wishes he would just die so that she could be free.

Caught on camera in Norwich? Can we please have a spin-off, where Timothy Walker is interviewed by Alan Partridge, asking "How are you?"

Flicking through my copy (let's face it, it's not going to spoil the plot) to find the Grant episode which @HatStickBoots has summed up perfectly, I noticed that it is dividing into Part One, Part Two etc with individual chapters in each section. Each part has a quote on the title page, Paddy Dillion, S. Heaney Beowulf, Homer.

Part 4 ('Lightly Salted Blackberries') is graced by 2 lines from a poem by Simon Armitage.

Now while I don't think Homer is likely to be coming after them I had a look at UK copywrite law. It's complicated and I'm sure the thread authors will know much more but it appears generally eg a couple of lines seems to be considered "fair dealing" and no fee due, although Faber and Faber (who published the poem by Simon) appear to be quite strict about non academic usage. According to the Society of Authors guidance

Using a quotation for decorative purposes, e.g. as the header to a chapter, or including it in a collection of quotations, is not considered fair dealing

In this whole morass I'm sure PRH will have checked that this at least was done properly and legally (hopefully) and I suppose anything that might widen the readership for SA and the others is a good thing.

The cheek though!

I agree @Uricon2 it is a cheek. It is sickening. It makes me even more certain that the mistaken identity theme was absolute fiction. I believe it was a case of wanting to rub alongside him and hopefully benefit from any reflected glory post production. I’m so glad that a line has since been drawn in the sand and he is having none of it.

It’s so good to have you back! I’ve just made a pot of tea with a teabag that’s been used twenty times already. There’s no milk I’m afraid, but plenty of brass neck to pass around!

They're acknowledged on the copyright page, @Uricon2 -- the specific translator of Homer, Heaney, Paddy Dillon, Simon Armitage.

ETA: Though it would have been funny if you came on here and said 'Well, you lot have thoroughly spoilered me, and it's a bit dull reading a book where you know the dying guy doesn't breathe his last on a lonely but scenic clifftop, with his faithful wife and scribe by his side, and also a tortoise. Grr!'

My memory of the 'Grant' episode in the film was that when Jason Isaacs says he's not SA at Grant's palatial house, Trent Crimm (agreed, James Lance is v attractive, and he's a great character in Ted Lasso!) looks askance at him, there's an awkward pause, the shot ends, and the next scene is them back on the path. So not clear whether we're supposed to imagine them being bundled ignominiously back out the door, or what...

Thanks @FishwivesSalute , should have checked that! 😂Ah well, I've learned something about copywrite for when I write 'How the Salt Path CURED Me (Reading It, Not Walking It)'

I actually started it but didn't get far, as I went to sleep and had the best night for a week. I don't think it was down to Salray as much as being totally knackered though.

@HatStickBoots Now I'm actually holding the thing in my hand, dipping in and not too bothered about reading it strictly chronologically (as @FishwivesSalute says, that boat has sailed!) I'm even more convinced of 2 things, that the whole Simon thing was utterly fabricated and that Salray is indeed Izzy Wynn-Thomas. The plonking. Overwrought. Writing. Style. is exactly the same as the extract from HNTDDD.

@HatStickBoots, if you compare the beginnings of TSP and Walking Away, other than the placenames matching, it's hard to believe they're walking the same path.

I know there are obvious practical differences between a book about

(1) a walk where the walker sleeps under cover at a pre-arranged spot every night, gives a reading every night, is generating income via readings, and is often walking with a random collection of friends and strangers, adequately nourished, and carrying only a day pack

and

(2) a walk involving two homeless people wild-camping, carrying everything they need, on little money and busily hating everyone else. (And, if one is to believe SW, this is a walk done in desperation with no intention of writing about it, whereas SA is taking voicenotes en route and writing them up every night, for a known, presumably commissioned, book project.)

But the first stages of both walks couldn't be more different, as written up.

There's a few beats in common (steep climbs, goats, rhododendrons), but otherwise they're worlds apart, and weirdly, given the way both books are marketed, SA is far more attentive to nature. He's always noting bird species, exactly what trees/vegetation/landscape he's walking through, the names of islands and rocks offshore, the exact colour of the bedrock/shingle. SW emotes a lot about wildness and nature, but is far less detailed in her attention to it.

Plus virtually all of the Walkers' encounters with people are negative. Dopey, loud Americans with a 'schedule'. Families grabbing their children away from the 'homeless' people. Aggressively unpleasant dog owners with badly-behaved dogs. SA meets a lot of people, for much longer periods (he's staying in their houses, or walking for hours with them), some of whom are eccentric or plain odd, but they're not all awful.

(Also, SA was, I think 52 when he walked the north part of the SWCP, but he doesn't appear to keep encountering passersby telling him how old he is...?)

I did come across one moment in Walking Away which might have inspired the long-running SA gag in TSP. At Combe Martin, a 'scouting party' are awaiting SA, to show him to where he's staying. They’ve already approached seven or eight ‘possibles’, but it’s the hat that persuades them I might be the poet they’re looking for.

I suppose it's possible TW was one of those possibles?

They were at least two weeks apart so I doubt very much that the scouts mistook Moth for SA.

Some people did meet Raymoth on the walk, chatted to them and found them perfectly pleasant. But they don't feature in the book. Or if they do, then both sides have different memories of the encounter!

Thanks for the fudge and hot water tea! Budge up though, you lot. I reckon I fell off the charabanc because mistakes were made- and not by me. I never make mistakes, oh no!

Anyway. Uricon, I hope your reading is helping and not hindering your health recovery!

I always thought the ‘Grant’ episode odd. It doesn’t fit the rest of the book and I think in a previous thread someone suggested that Sal didn’t write it- another member of the committee put it in. Tim, maybe. I saw it as evidence that all the embezzlement etc was a mission to keep him in the style he’d like to become accustomed to, and he was a sort of narcissist puppet master. I’m still not convinced that their relationship doesn’t have something quite dark at its heart, and that chapter in particular I found quite disturbing to read.

@DoubtfulCat I always thought the ‘Grant’ episode odd. It doesn’t fit the rest of the book and I think in a previous thread someone suggested that Sal didn’t write it- another member of the committee put it in. Tim, maybe. I saw it as evidence that all the embezzlement etc was a mission to keep him in the style he’d like to become accustomed to, and he was a sort of narcissist puppet master. I’m still not convinced that their relationship doesn’t have something quite dark at its heart, and that chapter in particular I found quite disturbing to read.

As you said to me, once before, can you say a bit more about this, please?

She comes across in the scene as sad and desperate- she pretty much gives her blessing to him getting more than a massage from these women as long as he doesn’t leave her. And I was wondering about the embezzlement. If she always felt, throughout their relationship, as if she’d absolutely won the lottery to get Tim, and always felt inferior to him and as if he was worthy of more beautiful or more talented or richer women and was always afraid he’d leave her. There are men who cultivate this and who keep their partners in a constant state of insecurity. This comes across in that Grant episode.

And we think Tim likes luxury and has expensive taste (witness his wedding outfit and honeymoon walking outfit!). So what if stealing the money meant Sal could treat him and support him? Or what if he laid an expectation on her that she must bring in more money to the household, and his expectations were out of her league? So she had to use foul means because she couldn’t use fair…