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.

I don't think anyone should feel like an idiot for believing what they were reading, at all. Salray lied, Timoth was complicit, they spun a web that drew pretty much everyone who read the book in it seems. The readers did nothing wrong.

Oh they are infuriating!

I spend a fair bit of time reading manuscripts from writers who are just starting out on their writing journey, and this 'copying a book I like' is a very common tic among those who haven't yet arrived at their own writing voice. They copy (sometimes unconsciously) a book that has inspired them. When I started out writing and 'trying to be a writer' (I was very young) I used to rehash my favourite pony books, only writing them with me as the protagonist. So I'd rewrite them and add in scenes of my own and make myself the heroine. It feels to me a little as though Sal has done the same thing.

It is done through lack of confidence in one's own writing voice (and also when you don't really know what to write about).

You've brilliantly highlighted the one thing that so often goes easily unnoticed: that the Raynor Winn in the books is often inconsistent with the Raynor Winn in interviews. In the books she's a child of nature etc etc and goes into detail about Moth's illness. Yet in interviews she tries to repeat the script while embellishing it with such claims as "the path" changed her, while avoiding details of Moth's illness at all costs. You correctly ask, "changed from what?". In the books, there is no apparent perspective change other than realising "home isn't four walls". So why does she regurgitate in interviews that the walk changed her, made her a better person, that it (and nature) had a redemptive power. Are we seeing in these moments the glimpses of the deceit? Is this her perhaps trying to convince herself? Of course, we also see the obvious incongruity of Moth in the book vs Moth in real life. But with Raynor, as the author, it is more intriguing.

Living on part-time wages with kids and teens in the 90s and 00’s would eat up a lot of money, no need for a lavish lifestyle! I hear it’s expensive to run a powder-blue non-Aga, too.

Yes @SimoArmo I'm glad you got my point, if I was being facetious, I would say it changed her from poor to rich, but that is superficial, it certainly didn't make her more honest :)

You are right here. When people say that something 'changed them' there are usually obvious signs - they give up their possessions and move to a simple life, or they give their money to a worthy cause (the South West Coast Path for example?). Not that Sal and Tim had any possessions to give away, of course, the poor dears having been laid low by Dread Authority.

But there they are, living in their (rented? bought? we don't know) expensive Cornish estates and lying low, reclining on their millions. No sign of any 'change' whatsoever, other than a good deal of comfort and security has been bought.

Why is she not striding along, head high, in the October winds and making observations on the crashing nature of the crashing waves or the sound of the seabirds high above - these sound like the trite and obvious observations she might come up with, and being contained and hidden away will clearly be no good for someone who has been changed by nature. Where is the sign of change?

Very true everybody and excellent points! I agree with everyone.
@Vroomfondleswaistcoat that is exactly how she portrays herself on the page! That is what would be expected of her if she were being true to the image she has created. That would be Raynor. Sally tries to excuse her backwards, skulking behaviour as being like a fox that’s gone to earth. She wants the reader to believe she’s a shy, persecuted, introverted soul instead of woman who had no qualms about stealing £64k from a small family business and when found out thought she could just swipe the unpleasantness away and act as though it never happened because it was paid back. ( It was pay it back or go to prison Sally! ) The opening chapters of the equally false second book TWS are “Gone to Earth”, “Invisible”, “Running”. The intent and meaning of these descriptions has completely changed in my mind now. By likening herself (note: not both of them) to a persecuted, shy and wild animal who can’t cope in civilisation, the reader may believe she’s has been living wild for so long that like a child raised by wolves or bears in a myth or fairy tale, we will be merciful and protective.
“Tried to rediscover how to live under a roof”
Oh give over!

All the persecution myths that she is trying to sell...

She is making herself out to be an innocent person being hounded unwarrantedly. Like an ordinary member of the public suddenly finding themselves persecuted and not knowing what to do because everyone has suddenly turned against her. When in fact it's more like someone who has committed a crime being sought by the police.

I know you've been answered, @EmeraldRoulette, but Yay! New Blood!

The general consensus is that they certainly walked parts of the path, though it's unlikely to be when they say they did,, and unlikely to be the way they claim (ie walked in two stints of approximately two months each, the first in total desperation, having literally just been made homeless and got TW's terminal diagnosis, and the second stint in slightly less desperate circumstances, to try to eke out SW's earnings as a fleecebagger until TW's student loan comes in).

It seems fairly clear that they were never quite without options for a roof over their heads, that the farm's repossession did not come as a surprise, and that TW was not tentatively diagnosed with possible CBS/CBD just before they set off, so that the first part of the walk was more in the nature of a backpacking holiday taken by two people who had hiked, climbed and wild-camped a lot when younger.

And it seems quite likely that the second part of the path was never walked, if it indeed was walked, at one go, but probably as day trips and weekends. There's a missing year between the chronology as given in TSP and the chronology of when TW started his studies in RL, so it seems likely they had a roof over their heads and did bits of the latter part of the walk piecemeal. Other significant rearrangements of the RL timeline silently make their way into TSP and its sequels, entirely changing their impact.

And that's leaving aside entirely the larger issues of TW's retrofitted diagnosis, and the recasting of the farm repossession as the result of excessive trust in a traitorous old friend rather than a failure to repay a loan taken out to cover up SW's embezzlement.

Hi @EmeraldRoulette and welcome!

I also got the impression from her rebuttal that she was furious (at being found out) and desperate to lash out but was being held in check by her lawyers. She will probably liken those feelings to those of a poor animal being trapped in a snare.

Breaking news - more revelations about The Real Salt Path from our Chloe due for release this December!

Sky Documentaries teams up with Candour Productions and The Observer for The Real Salt Path (w/t) | Sky Group

Wow!!! That’s fantastic news! Thank you @izzywizzyletsgetbizzywynthomas

Yo be shown on Sky? I haven’t got Sky..

Thanks for telling us all. Shame I won't be able to watch it. Not what was expected .... I was told it was the BBC, which would have been more accessible, but maybe there will be other investigations?

I think the BBC are doing something without Chloe? Or were? It was announced upthread somewhere. We don’t have Sky, so this is very disappointing unless it appears on YouTube afterwards.

I spoke to someone who had been interviewed before. They said that the BBC were doing a follow-up but they had decided not to take part. Chloe's investigations are often hosted by the BBC, they show the Tortoise Media documentaries. This time they must have got a lot of interest from Sky. The BBC is one of the backers of TSP film - that may make a difference?

If you have NOW TV then it seems it will stream there according to the press release.

www.skygroup.sky/en-gb/article/sky-documentaries-teams-up-with-candour-productions-and-the-observer-for-the-real-salt-path-w-t-

I've got Now, hardly watch it, tha twill change!

Now, with exclusive access to Chloe’s ongoing investigation as new whistleblowers come forward with their own versions of events..

From the Sky blurb. Interesting.

Yes sounds very exciting ... hope it is done well ... a bit OTT:

.. this very British whodunnit

Unless there is something I don't know ... Smotyn was the victim of a dastardly deed? Surely it is a howdunnit?

Yeah, not really a whodunnit is it... more fitting would be a why & whendunnit, with a heavy dose of whatdidyouspendthehemmingsmoneyondunnit

I don't have Sky or Now, will have to wait for someone to blast it onto YouTube, or some other streaming service to pick it up! Curses!

But yes, it's not even a whydunnit. Fame and Money. Although neither of these was guaranteed, so maybe Sal just wanted to be in print and calling herself a writer - perhaps what she really wanted and still wants is a powerful presence. In some circles, even just being published by a very small press and selling small numbers of books is enough to get you invited onto panels and to talk at events, and perhaps that would have been enough for her.

Well done Our Chloe for not letting this go.

Ah yes, money. The love of money ... Specifically easy money.

In the past, employed as court clerk to accept money for fines, jobs as bookkeeper.

Trying the book-based house raffle. Then the book that was misery memoir/traveller's companion/nature lover's redemption/menopausal woman's triumph over adversity.

The subsequent rehashed books, and one to come. But, looking ahead, the easier money from the festivals, the next bout of witterings with Gigspanner BB and even wellness retreats.....

It could be a new cosy crime drama.

"Who Killed Smotyn?"

Chief Inspector Hadjimatheou and DS Armitage looked at each other a little apprehensively as they approached the scene. The pathologist, Bill Cole, had almost finished his work and his face was grim as the light faded. The SOCOs in their white coveralls flitted like moths in the gathering dusk

"It's certainly sheepicide, I'll need to get him back to the lab before I can say more for certain. I wouldn't talk to them though" indicating with a dismissive nod the farmhouse doorway where a middle aged couple clung to each other like limpets to rock. "There was a Mrs Hemmings up here earlier other side of the tape and she said she knows a lot about them. A lot and none of it good, from her tone".

I think you can still get Now TV for just a month (£9.99), so if you were to get it early Dec, you could watch this and then also have any Christmas progs (if there's any worth watching).

At £9.99 I would imagine that it would be excellent value for money if Chloe's new revelations about TSP are on the scale of her original Observer article!