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.

It would have changed the whole narrative if they'd lost their house due to bankruptcy. Questions would be asked about how the bankruptcy came about and it's harder to explain away as 'we loaned money to someone...' because then it starts to look like culpable stupidity. Going on a long walk because you've had to declare bankruptcy also loses them the 'disadvantaged little people now homeless' status too, because bankruptcy is a state they would have entered on purpose.

It's a totally retrospective idea of course but maybe going bankrupt at an earlier stage (instead of robbing the Hemmings, although I think that was quite possibly to fund a lifestyle beyond their means) and declaring it in the book would have been better for them in the long run. It hasn't got the stigma it used to have (too many financial crashes in recent decades) and I'm not sure many people would have wanted to question the reasons why too closely. I could easily find sympathy for bankrupt people, not so much embezzlers.

However, it would of course mean admitting that they are not perfect, totally innocent victims of a Cruel World and as we know, that does not come easily to Raymoth.

ETA Sorry @Vroomfondleswaistcoat , wrote mine before I saw your last . I am definitely with you that she had more than the germ of an idea about that book before they set out.

The story they gave left less room for questions as you say @Vroomfondleswaistcoat I am still chuckling at culpable stupidly :) on the retrospective idea @Uricon2 I have wondered why Salray didn't start her book with the embezzlement and house loss, she could have said her love for Moth, not feeling good enough, wanting to give him things in order to keep him caused her to do it and people would have bought her book, they would have been intrigued by how do you come back from that as a couple.

But there could be no lies about diagnosis (and all the other fabrications) she would have had to admit the embezzlement and be genuinely contrite, but I don't think that is in Salray's repotoir. We know she had already written a book and I think@Vroomfondleswaistcoat is right, the plan for the TSP book was already there.

I have not read it, but it was the health angle which was the “hot button” for me, for similar reasons. There’s always “something” I should be doing which could apparently cure me, and yet we know there is no cure and “trying” will cause me damage.
Although the personalities, the deception, theft and discussions have kept me here!

I'm sorry you encounter such people @LetsBeSensible it is not easy or good for your health dealing with them. I did get an ebay copy of the book after I started posting, it has been useful for reference and I am still here for the same reasons as you :)

I sometimes struggle to reconcile the feelings expressed by Raymoth for CBD sufferers such as Bruce Cleveland (whom Raymoth met on their Thames Path Walk to raise PSPA Awareness in April 2024) and genuine sufferers with CBD who exhibit classic symptoms of CBD (6-8 year life expectancy from the appearance of first symptoms).

How do they feel about Raymoth's ability to walk 1000 miles of the most arduous of Britain's long distance footpaths with no obvious ill effects (2020) or walk the 26 miles of the London Marathon in 2023 in under 8 hours or compete the 120 mile Thames Path in April 2024 in 10 days? Moth's daily mileage since August 2013 has ironically increased over the last decade from around 6 to over 8 miles per day!

Do they feel uplifted and encouraged that Moth has discovered some miracle cure to halt the disease in its tracks or completely conned?

And why has the PSPA dropped Raymoth like a hot brick so soon after Chloe's original expose?

Some claim that TSP is a victimless crime and thus harmless. It isn't.

I’m either a faker/shit life syndrome or I’m wallowing and not helping myself. I’m always not really ill, or not ill enough, or “you can do it when you want to”. The joys of a fluctuating, invisible disability. It’s the NHS staff who are the worst for it to be honest.

@izzywizzyletsgetbizzywynthomas Yes it is difficult to hear from Bruce and John, who Chloe interviewed. In one of the articles of the upcoming documentary, that you shared yesterday, was the trailer for TSP film. I noticed how silly the actor looked badly limping - when we saw TimMoth walking around the orchard, and crouching down, with Rick Stein (2022).

I wonder if Sal is now regretting like hell ever 'talking up' Tim's symptoms? If she'd just shut up about 'CBD/CBS' and said that Tim had some problems possibly of a Parkinsonian nature that were concerning and affected him from time to time, rather than leaning so heavily into the 'terminal and progressive disease that will be fatal in less than a decade' - everyone would have, not necessarily more sympathy, but a little bit more understanding.

There's still the little matter of the actual reason for their walk (her embezzlement, which, no Sal, won't go away no matter how many times you stress that 'the money was paid back' - it was still a crime) and the probably fraudulent winning of the CB 'First Book' prize of course. But if she hadn't been so quick and keen to yell CBD she might have got away with it.

You are talking about a rational person not a pathological liar. Therein lies the difference I suspect.

Mishtakes were made, but would I do it all again? Youbetcha!

Agree @Vroomfondleswaistcoat . If TSP had involved a genuine mea culpa about their mistakes and the hurt caused, not talked up Timoth's mild, vague symptoms into a life destroying diagnosis, she's refused the CB prize with an explanation about HNTDDD, a good deal less "poor us" misanthropy and Our Chloe wouldn't have had an expose to run with.

There are plenty of redemption memoirs (I'm thinking of John McVicar for one) and although her writing would still not be great, the sour taste this book leaves wouldn't exist.

ETA post crossed with @izzywizzyletsgetbizzywynthomas . Yes, there is that!😂

Loving all these posts! ❤️👏🏻
Yes, absolutely “Youbetcha!” 😆 @izzywizzyletsgetbizzywynthomas

@Vroomfondleswaistcoat re: Tim’s symptoms… A lot of her dialogue to the reader in TSP about “Moth” is her emotional reactions and when presented with that level of hysteria, you’ve got to have symptoms to match it. A lot of it also is about her arrogant dismissal of the doctor’s advice. She leads the reader, grabs the reader in both hands and practically yells at them that the doctor knows shit about her husband - or yours either if he were terminally ill too - and you know best what he needs and that’s a damned good walk to get away from your debt collectors and everyone you’ve been taking the piss out of for years in another county.

I think we can all agree that if she had only been honest and upfront, TSP would have been a very different book. But would it have been, objectively, better?

She's not a great writer, so her nature descriptions wouldn't have improved, it would have been a monologue about how hard it is to live with a husband you are trying constantly to keep up with (maybe laying Tim low with an imaginary illness was her way of evening the score?) with a background of theft and manipulation...

And I don't think she has the writing ability to link redemption from a past of dishonesty with the freedom of having nothing and the juxtaposition of being surrounded by nature with the previous desire to surround herself with material possessions (like the French house).

So she stuck with what she knew she could do.

It would be the right thing for her to own up about her real first novel and give the Christopher Bland prize money back. That would be a decent thing to do. I feel genuinely sad about this and I can fully understand the anger too. It shows what sort of character she has that she accepted the award with no qualms at all and just carried on her journey as the newly invented Raynor Winn.

Because her prose isn't great she has to compensate by over dramatising everything else.

Court room drama, shock CBD diagnosis, bailliffs at the door, hiding in the cupboard like frightened mice, shaft of light illuminates 500 miles walkies, sudden inspiration to walk the SWCP, angels appear in Glastonbury, Moth laid out for 2 weeks in Yeovil, mastiff knocks Sal flying in Lynton, coins go flying, Sal acrobatically grabs coin as it disappears down drain, foul mouthed woman berates them as tramps etc etc etc.

This isn't a description of real life events, it's infantile hammed up story telling on a par with the bilge spouted in the intro to HNTDDD

It's like when beginner-writers starting on their first novel end every chapter with 'But little did she know, there was worse to come!!' (The two exclamation marks are also a give away).

SalRay62 - 15/07/2013 10.31

The sound of the waves was unmistakeable, the wind blew my hair, and the sun was burning my head. I couldn't find a sunhat and suncream is too expensive. Now where was I? Well, here I am in Cornwall which for all the tourists cluttering up the beach, looks great. But, I've been ground into the dirt again through no fault of my own.

At least I've got some time to think while Tim is surfing with Tom. Some time to read, I couldn't afford a new holiday book so as it's the south west, and I don't know the area, I thought I'd re-read 500 Mile Walkies. I found it, covered in dust, on a shelf in our home library. I know that I can write now and I got a lot of positive comments, from family and friends, about my Welsh novel, sorry to say the raffle didn't get thousands buying the book. Anyway, that was the amateurish marketing not my writing.

Actually, a new scheme is starting to form as I read about this coast path. Good, I've got a pen and I'm starting to underline some of his ideas ....

Would it have been better? Good question. She should have made it fictional, then at least people could decide for themselves if they enjoyed the style of writing enough to buy it. Something as honest as you’ve suggested in your post, might have made an interesting (not better) read but it wouldn’t have been presented with such fanfare or piled with accolades afterwards.

@BeguiledBrandy ; "Home Library" - AKA that shelf above the AGA where words go to die.

This is it… Incredible… this should be the script for the film!

and @izzywizzyletsgetbizzywynthomas youve so perfectly summed it up.

There’s an advert here for Kindle scribe... “your dedicated thinking space”… I don’t think I’d ever dare! 😃

@HatStickBoots @Vroomfondleswaistcoat @izzywizzyletsgetbizzywynthomas totally agree with all your points about the histrionic quality of the writing, especially (so far) about her reactions to Timoth's so called diagnosis.

I'm going to say it. In the initial 'diagnosis' passage it feels like she is writing what she thinks a devoted wife would feel, think and say about her husband getting such medical news. It seems inauthentic and play acted. I've reread that passage several times to check that I'm not being unfair, but on each reading that feeling gets stronger and while I know everyone reacts differently to things, it just doesn't ring true to me. She also manages to shoe yet more of her rage into her description of the doctor's "smug, tight" lips when he says he's going to tell them what he believes is wrong with Moth.

I cannot describe how much I love this comment.

That memorable first interview with the Rev Richard Coles on Saturday Live (23.00) which catapaulted Sal into the national limelight, never ceases to amaze.

https://www.bbc.com/audio/play/b09vyw8h

You’re absolutely right and are not being unfair at all. We are told that TSP began as a series of jotted notes in a guidebook and this “play acting” that you’ve so perfectly described is really just that, because there was no specific diagnosis at that time anyway.