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.

Now does often have first month free deals I think. DH being bedbound, we have a lot of the streaming channels and for the first time, it's paid off.

Am willing to do a transcript if needed, if I can be let off reading anymore of TSP for a bit! It really is dire.

Sounds excellent although sadly I don't have Sky. I think the timing is good as it will be 10 months until the publication of OWH. We need to keep this thread going until the programme airs in December.

Exciting news @izzywizzyletsgetbizzywynthomas I don't have Sky, but I think a month's subscription to Now would be worth it. I wonder what fresh revelations it will bring.

One media outlet says:

With exclusive access to new evidence, fresh testimony from whistleblowers, and the people who knew the Winns before their famous walk began, The Real Salt Path aims to separate fact from literary fiction.

December seems a long time.

I don't think we'll struggle too hard to do that. Every time I think of those books I get angry all over again, and then I remember the Christopher Bland prize and I have to come back over here to let off steam.

See, I was genuinely wondering if any of the later readers would say ‘You know what, I can really see why people loved it! They seem so in love, and nasty old Cooper was so beastly, and so was the tight-ponytailed woman at the council offices, and Polly! And you’d need a heart of stone not to feel for poor light-fingered Raynor shoplifting food for her dying husband!’😀

Will Dave and Julie appear? whoever they really are, I feel for you @Vroomfondleswaistcoat we are going to need lots of fudge and cider as @BeguiledBrandy says December is a way off, we will need to fortify ourselves.

Don't worry, I've already started on the fudge. I need quite a lot of fortifying, so I thought I'd get in early.

@Vroomfondleswaistcoat we can't have you getting faint on us :)

The nephew's Linkedin page likes CH's announcement about the forthcoming TV documentary.

That's intriguing @Peladon didn't he call them ne'er do well's, or something similar, it wasn't complimentary from what I can remember.

Ooh I’m newly on LinkedIn. Who do I need to follow?

By the way, I sort of ended up eating a few fudge bars myself after I clambered back aboard the charabanc. Also I thought I’d lost my bottle of cider so I opened another one and then found the first. Hic. Sorry. First chance I get I’ll pop into Spar and nick a few more. Hic.

No. It really is that bad. Her writing is dreadful and she seems so very angry with everyone ... but it's about What We Know Now.

It is the knowing that makes it unbearable. Without that, it is a different thing, because we now know the story is based on lies and no quarter can be given mentally. I do see why people who read it before the expose loved it though.

I'm going to perserve because I don't want to be kicked off the Path 😂 I said I'd do it and I will!

Maybe Dave and Julie were undercover all along? And the documentary will be full of surreptitious footage of TW doing somersaults up a mountain in Iceland and sprinting along the Pennine Way?

Despite all the evidence of wrong doing that has emerged in the wake of Chloe's articles there are many who still believe in Raynor's innocence and in conspiracy theories.

A friend who knew the Walkers in Cornwall emailed me today convinced that the whistle blower who alerted Chloe to Raynor's misdemeanours had a hidden agenda - to destroy her "environmental voice"

I'm worried you might get caught @DoubtfulCat you had better wear Salray's big gigspanner overcoat to hide the bottles, I think we found it on a bench a way back. I don't know how your doing it @Uricon2 but your thoughts as you go along are very entertaining :) Well @KettleSmocks indeed, that would be a turn up for the books, I hope we are going to find out who they are. I'm gobsmacked by that @izzywizzyletsgetbizzywynthomas.

If I fortify myself with any more comfort fudge, I shall resemble Jabba the Hutt come December! I’ll have to satisfy myself with some avant garde imaginary fudge.
I chuckled at the thought of the nephew “liking” the post on LinkedIn.

I’d be really interested to hear what she thought SW’s ‘environmental voice’ was actually saying, though.

Because other than some vague ‘We should all be more attuned to wild nature’ stuff that comes under the general heading of Twee Platitudes Involving the Natural World, I’m not sure what else there is? The rewilding stuff doesn’t appear to involve more than someone else taking their livestock away and making logpiles. They’ve had ample time, money and opportunity to start environmental initiatives, buy land to rewild, throw their voices behind positions etc, but they haven’t.

Environmental Voice, who the heck do they think she is @izzywizzyletsgetbizzywynthomas as @KettleSmocks points out Salray says nothing of meaningful, If we are dependent on Raynor Winn to be a voice for us, we might as well chuck ourselves off the path right now, we need more bottles of cider quickly @DoubtfulCat, no more fudge for @HatStickBoots just imaginary, but you will need cider @HatStickBoots real cider.

Conspiracy theory! I’ve heard it all now! Yes indeed, what environmental voice? It’s not an authentic voice and you’re absolutely right @KettleSmocks they could have done that, bought their own land etc

I guess that the SWCP rebrand is up in the air then!

Just notoced that the BBC describes TSP as a "profound true story": https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfilm/films/the-salt-path

In Landlines there’s a bit where RW is bemoaning how much of the countryside is shut off by landowners, with ‘keep out’ signs stopping them camping. Made me wonder if she would be happy for us all to come and camp out on her sizeable rented land… something tells me not!!

There’s no mention of their removal from the farm as being ‘at the same time as Moths terminal illness diagnosis’ in the description either.

I do agree with some of her sentiments in Landlines about the treatment of animals in farming, eg pigs being kept in confined spaces without seeing daylight. And the loss of wildlife across the country in general.

But I’m also laughing at the number of convos included about fellow walkers who are fans of the book mentioning how it changed their lives along the way, either those really happened and she couldn’t resist including them or they are pure self-congratulatory fantasy.