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.

Does anyone else think that the picture of the ladies starring in the new TV series Riot Women posted just upthread by @DisappointedReader could be titled-

"Contributors to a recent series of MN threads have a few questions for Raymoth"

?

When I read that part, I immediately thought of the two little “old dears” in Fawlty towers. It is scripted like farcical comedy!
I think the people she writes about (if real) would certainly have known who Simon Armitage is because they were expecting him and his photo was up on posters and in shop windows. It’s more likely that Walker’s readership had not heard of him.

“Young Brad Pitt” on the coast path, yes, the surfers. Incidentally, that’s another interesting part of TSP, when the WWs get led off to stay with some cool, young people (Aussie surfers and seasonal lifeguards) and Moth morphs in Jeff Bridges’ Dude character and opens up about his terminal illness. This was depicted quite differently in the film.

Hello everyone, I have been around since about thread 8 under a number of names. Not posted in a while but every time I check in there are lots of interesting conversations going on. Particularly enjoyed the topic of the SW 'brand' and wholly agree that Penguin must have been extremely keen to milk the ' down on their luck, walk, recovery' theme. Also agree that without that theme there's just nowhere for SW to go. Her writing simply isn't good enough when there are Robert Mcfarlanes et al in the frame.

Yes, no hanging out with Old Dears or Suburban Jobsworths, just the surfers and the bronzed lifeguards, cool youth who live in horse boxes, and the displaced rural labourers who live secretly in the woods.

I mean, they wouldn’t want to be confused with the wrong type of old people, who tut about wild camping, own badly-behaved whippets and ooh and ah over Doc Martin, would they?

Thankfully, that does seem to be the case. And fair play to him, too. I've put his SWCP walking book on my list given how much people are recommending it.

Completely agree with the points about how awful and patronising the descriptions are of everyone encountered. Glumwashing indeed. It must be so depressing to view people through such a lens.

Google truly has the answer to (almost) everything...
Laurie Hertzel: "And regarding their names: When I reviewed "The Salt Path" for the Star Tribune, I wrote to the publisher and asked what Moth's last name was and they told me then that it was Walker. It was clear from the book that Winn was Raynor's maiden name."
www.facebook.com/profile/1250136727/search/?q=salt

Laurie loves the book, and that post and the replies are very pro the Walkers and anti Chloe.

However, in an earlier 2019 post, Laurie writes: "Moth Walker" sounds like a made-up name but that's the name the publicist gave me...

I do.

I'm now getting constant ads on here for 'The Better Menopause Better Libido'!!! Do they know something about my life that I don't?!

Where was this written? Link doesn't work (for me)

I’ve just had a Co Op advert for an outdoor funeral for “outdoorsy types” I kid you not… accompanied by a photo of a young woman perched on a rock.

Video of SA talking about Walking Away.

He gave readings in libraries, galleries,a village hall, a restaurant, a bookshop and somebody's home. Most events seems to have been attended by around 40 people, two thirds of whom were women. Publicity prior to his walk seems to have been pretty limited - a few A5 hand printed posters in village shop windows and notice boards and some appeals in local papers for venues to host his walk.

One article about his 2013 SWCP walk claims that he is "one of the few poets who gets recognised in the street or by their voice". But he wasn't walking in disguise and there is no reason why anybody might have thought he was a poet walking incognito or might not have been happy to divulge his true identity if asked!

SW seems to have appropriated the concept of SA the wandering troubadour to enhance the narrative arc of TSP. In the same way you could argue that she has appropriated the SWCP to enhance the myth of their own walk in 2013/4 (CBD/homelessness), to the extent that many walkers (pun not intended) now refer to the SWCP as The Salt Path.

Quite a feat of deception and grand larceny!

@izzywizzyletsgetbizzywynthomas SW seems to have appropriated the concept of SA the wandering troubadour to enhance the narrative arc of TSP. In the same way you could argue that she has appropriated the SWCP to enhance the myth of their own walk in 2013/4 (CBD/homelessness), to the extent that many walkers (pun not intended) now refer to the SWCP as The Salt Path.

Thank you for finding this. I agree with you about the above. This is what got to me and has kept me on this thread. Especially when people now refer to the SWCP as The Salt Path.

I hear he has "a strong northern accent" - like the woman who rents them the flat! I suppose it made a change from the "strong Welsh accent" ....

Grrr…. I’m just glad that no portrait of her got nailed up onto any of the path markers.

On Laurie's Facebook - I've posted a screenshot below, as I think you have to be logged in to Facebook to see it.

The video of SA’s reading of his book was very interesting - I’ve now ordered a copy and looking forward to reading it and comparing to TSP and TWS.

In fact I’m plodding through TWS at the moment and finding it a tedious read. From SW’s adulation of TW - something between a romantic heartthrob and Swampy (P 38 TWS - spent ‘weeks up trees’ as an eco-warrior), the constant referral to blackberries and I’m annoyed at the mis-spelling of the Welsh word ‘Hiraeth’ as the title of chapter 3.

I’m only about half way through so just about to start on the Cider Farm section.

Not wishing to defend the book (or author) but hireth is actually a cornish word with the same meaning as hiraeth

something between a romantic heartthrob and Swampy (P 38 TWS - spent ‘weeks up trees’ as an eco-warrior

It’s odd isn’t it. Firstly this breathless, wide-eyed fangirling, as if they hadn’t spent 30-odd years together and must surely (surely!!??) have seen each other warts and all, and had a few rows as well. To me it doesn’t align with her negativity towards most other people or her coldness towards crimes of connivance and deceit. Or does it? Do we still have our resident psychologist @ShrinkWrappedInSeattle ?

And secondly, why, given this fangirling, doesn’t she go into far more detail about his eco activism? For most readers that would endear him even more to them.

Yes and why has he ditched his hippy hat and crumbling, battered copy of Beowulf? 🤔

Except we have more machetes....

Oh. Am I speaking just for myself again? Anyone want a machete? I've got lots.

(Makes mental note not to annoy @Vroomfondleswaistcoat )😁

Been busy with other life things recently but coming back to these threads! Interesting in the comments below that she writes “well, i don't think the reporter had any documents about the alleged embezzlement--no charges were ever filed. and raynor winn did post medical records that show her husband was, indeed, treated for corticobasal degeneration. so i'd say the truth is back in Winn's court. we'll see how the Observer responds.”

I'd like to point out to her that being treated for a condition is rather different to actually having a condition - sometimes they treat you for a specific condition because your symptoms are very similiar but they have no diagnosed proof that you have that actual condition.

My friend has asthma inhalers to help her breathing but she's never been diagnosed with asthma, just as an example.

Well indeed. I may well have missed lots of the discussion. I just thought it interesting at that point that journalist is clearly partisan. I wonder whether she still thinks that 13 weeks later.

Er, no charges were brought because RW paid the money back to avoid that. And of course you do pay someone tens of thousands of pounds when you're innocent of theft, because LOOK, A TOURIST STUFFING THEIR FACE AND LETTING THEIR DOG MISBEHAVE. Where was I again?

Our Chloe made it clear that the WWs were indeed offered right of reply and chose not to use it, later resorting to the 'mistakes were made' website rebuttal. I notice Laurie doesn't refer to that bit.