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.

strange things happened during a once in a hundred year pandemic.

I'd be really interested in how much the sales of TSP, published 2018, went up during the pandemic. Out in nature, health fears, worries about financial security. That would certainly have struck a chord with many in that period.

100 year pandemic is right. My great grandmother carried on having children until the age of 52 and the older boys fought in WW1, the (well underage) one very badly wounded, got a gallantry medal for it but came back. My Nan said her mother would stand at the door the moment the telegram boy was seen in the street and not go in until he'd passed.

Gt Gran had a baby in May 1918, a little boy who died in the Spansh flu in the November that year. Nan was always happy to talk about the family and the past (I wish I'd paid more attention) but couldn't/wouldn't talk about that, she just wouldn't. Real tragedy as opposed to concocted, I suppose, the boys Gt Gran feared so much for were OK but the least expected thing happened.

My grandfather survived the Great War including fighting in the trenches on the Western Front and liberating Jerusalem in 1918 with General Allenby only to die from flu in 1923 when my father was 1 year old and his sister only a few days old. Blighted the family for a generation.

I totally agree @Uricon2 there are people who suffer terrible loss and they cannot talk about it. We were just shut in during COVID we didn't lose anyone, we couldn't see loved one's but they were still alive.

Thank you @BeguiledBrandy I like her style :)

How people who had just come out of such a destructive war then coped with losing people they thought were safe I don't know. My DH lost the last of his mobility that we'd worked on very hard because of Covid (I had it too and couldn't visit anyway and he was left in bed too long) but I still thank our lucky stars, because it could have been worse.

The Salray pity party is obnoxious, because it was increasingly clear to anyone with eyes that Timoth is not as ill as she made out, made out to sell books.

Everything is cynically manipulated to fit her agenda/story.

The most extreme example of this is the tentative diagnosis in July 2015 of an indolent neurological condition most closely resembling CBS. This is transformed in TSP into a gut wrenching prognosis of Moth at death's door with CBD and being advised not to to tackle steep inclines like the stairs with a definitive best case scenario of 2 year's life expectancy. All for dramatic effect while subsequently being quite happy to become an ambassador for PSPA. How much more cynical can you get?

I'm sorry the lockdown was so detrimental to you both @Uricon2, the pain of losing a loved one, having thought them safe, would be very hard to bear. The whole thing is so cynical @izzywizzyletsgetbizzywynthomas especially the miss representation of the 2015 diagnosis and it's retrofitting.

It is indeed utterly cynical and allied with the whole "us poor victims" tone of TSP , revolting.

I'm sure there are many who might think about our threads "Why don't you just let it goooooo..it's a nice stoooory..?" but in an age where people seem to be prepared to believe the greatest unproven nonsense and ramp it up/disseminate it online, actually saying ' No, this is not OK, they are liars' feels like an act of defiance against 'alternative truth', which is not truth at all.

Absolutely brilliant.

That was a fascinating read. I loved the 'backpacking reprobates' expression. McLaren is right in that there's been a lot of trauma and misery in literature and the media and it has become almost like a competition with all kinds of people seeing an opportunity to cash in.

In terms of classic travelogues 'A Time of Gifts' has been superseded by 'A Time of Grifts'!

I shared this quite recently, but it's certainly worthy of sharing again, like bars of fudge when one needs a pick-me-up...apologies if I'm venturing into "gleeful witch huntery" territory. It's a fair review though. Many good points with one of my favourites being:

"It is poverty cosplay for the Waitrose shopper; suffering served up in manageable, morally improving doses to readers safe from ever having to spend a damp night in a bivvy bag themselves."

In their statement about the Observer article which led to Raymoth being dropped as ambassadors for the charity, the PSPA said:

"Whilst we are thankful for the awareness opportunities their story has provided; too many questions currently remain unanswered"

Over the last 3 months I think some of those questions have been answered.

Namely:

• the first tentative diagnosis of CBS/CBD didn't occur until June 2015 some two years after the events described in TSP
• there appears to have been no mention of a timeframe attached to the progression of Moth's illness, certainly not any statement about life expectancy of up to 2 years as asserted by SW in numerous interviews and articles
• the severity of disease and the original diagnosis appear to have been deliberately exaggerated in TSP for dramatic effect and retrofitted into the narrative

Yet for me there is still one huge question that remains unanswered.

To what degree were Moth's symptoms deliberately exaggerated when they met the neurologist (Rhys Davies) in June 2015? Why did Moth state that his mother had died many years previously when she was still alive and didn't die until 2018? Why was no mention made of the arduous and physically challenging walks they had undertaken on the SWCP in 2013 (and possibly 2014)?

Subsequently, if SW was so adamant that the doctors must have been wrong about Moth's diagnosis, why did they not seek a second opinion? Why, based in Cornwall since 2015, did they continue to consult the same neurologist and not get referred to one much closer (Exeter/Southampton)?

Did Raymoth deliberately engineer the original CBS/CBD diagnosis to enhance the narrative in TSP and increase the chances of it being a commercial success? Or was the original CBS diagnosis a chance happenstance?

I don't know the answer to that question, but I have my suspicions.

I think I've said on here before that I suspect that SalRay had already self diagnosed Tim with CBD and this accounts for her perpetual cries of misdiagnosis. She either wanted or believed him to have CBD which is why she only heard anything that agreed with her belief and anything else was 'misdiagnosis'. So then of course she believed that the walking was what cured or helped him and she produces the letters because she believes they help her cause, even when they don't.

It's a kind of what used to be known as Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, I think. And she literally can't, or won't hear anything that goes against this.

It's fair to say that news of the Sky docudrama release in December hasn't been greeted by universal acclaim by die hard fans!

Good Lord…. That person appears to live amongst magic toadstools or something. It’s not being sold to you as a work of fiction Helen… I despair.

I mean, I really like eg Simon's poetry and the books of his I've read but I'd be embarrassed to gush over them on the Internet like a 12 year old in the grip of a Donny Osmond obsession.

I can’t remember … can anyone remind me, did she reject the doctor’s diagnosis or just the doctor’s orders? No wait…. That diagnosis with the advice about being careful on the stairs didn’t take place before the eviction and subsequent walk… so which diagnosis did she reject? I’m so sorry I’m getting so confused.. 🫤

I don’t seem to have that skill! Where is the sellotaped together cardboard cutout?

(The skill involved of curbing enthusiasm for SA’s poems and prose!)

I'm trying to work out the diagnosis/refusal to believe etc timeline in my head and getting very confused, because as we know there are at least 2 variants in circulation and it's quite probably neither are true.

@HatStickBoots it's the thing about that person actually caring and believing like they know them personally that gets me, seemingly utterly impervious to a well publicised public scandal that has bought into question so much about the books.

However, I think we need a Simon that doesn't look like he's had a run in with Henry VIII, out of respect! He deserves it.

@izzywizzyletsgetbizzywynthomas Yet for me there is still one huge question that remains unanswered.
To what degree were Moth's symptoms deliberately exaggerated when they met the neurologist (Rhys Davies) in June 2015? Why did Moth state that his mother had died many years previously when she was still alive and didn't die until 2018? Why was no mention made of the arduous and physically challenging walks they had undertaken on the SWCP in 2013 (and possibly 2014)?

Thank you for setting the facts out so clearly. It had not sunk in that they have both put their mothers' deaths in a different time

It takes the saying "I swear on my mother's grave" to whole new depths.

The whole Timoth lying about his mother being dead had passed me by. WTH?!

I mean, if anyone asked if my (birth) father were still alive I'd say "Haven't got a clue guv" which would be the truth, I met him once over 40 years ago. I've been asked for family medical history and been honest that I know very little and that gleaned from some fairly half hearted genealogy work on his side. If they were NC, to use MN parlance, you'd say so.

Surely? It is very, very strange behaviour.

ETA Yet more very strange behaviour, of course.

Yes, I also meant to say that that is an excellent point about not mentioning that they’d done a LDW when they saw the doctor in 2015. It hadn’t occurred to me.

I also agree about the tone of that SM post. I don’t understand how anybody can feel that way about a couple on con merchants. It just goes to show how manipulative Salray is. The poster is “energised” by them and that’s all that seems to matter. I had a discussion with my own son about this subject because he hadn’t read the books or the scandal but I’d organised for a party of us to go and see the film and have dinner after and he had enjoyed it… albeit remarking that the ending cut suddenly and there were a few jarring scenes with fluffy bunnies and angry cafe owners…. Anyway, on his last visit I mentioned the scandal and he began to ask me if it mattered. How much time have you got son?? At first he thought that the “awareness” of CBD was enough to waive away the negatives. It isn’t though because they falsely represented the diseases and have done more harm than good.

In both of their cases, the misrepresentation of the demise of their mothers cranks up the neurological condition.

Tim is in his mid-fifties and the doctor describes him: Mr Walker looks young for his years and has an entirely normal demeanour.
But later in the letter, it states that his mother died in her fifties.

Sal's unedited TSP, still titled Lightly Salted Blackberries, states how horrifying it would be to go through losing her husband in a similar end to her mother - six months previously.

@HatStickBoots I wish I could be "energised" to progress with reading that wretched book! Did you manage to convince your son that what they did isn't OK? The fluffy bunnies are Innocent, of course.

He needs to read it I think. Christmas present? Maybe not... "My DM gave me a book she despises for Christmas, second hand. AIBU in saying something before I get the other 2 she also hates for my birthday?"

Maybe the death of truth era that we're in has warped how reality is seen. Write fiction, fine, fill your boots (although I agree with @Vroomfondleswaistcoat upthread in saying that it would not have been picked up by PRH as such because the writing isn't good enough)
Don't however peddle a load of lies and obfuscation, including in media appearances as true and if you do, expect to be called out.