Thread 19: To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film?

[DisappointedReader]

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?

Thread 18: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5422393-thread-18-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. Over four months we have done amazingly well together for 18 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.

Keep to the path. No saltiness. May the fudge and cider be with you.

"I'll fight anyone who says I'll make it to Christmas 2021!"

@HatStickBoots Is it the tears and the sorrys that get acted out every time she is confronted?

I think we have to accept that all the victims ever get is the tears. This is not an unqualified sorry:

'Any mistakes I made during the years in that office, I deeply regret, and I am truly sorry.'

She is not clear that she has made any mistakes. Regularly pocketing the profits is a deliberate act, of course, but I don't think that even enters her thought processes.

@HatStickBoots I think Salray and Timoth are best suited to a waggon in the Old West, purveying snake oil. Actually, I might put more faith in that than any 'wellness' she might feel qualified to to expound on, if I needed to be told to take a brisk walk for my health I'd have listened to my Nan, for free, although being of a pre modern medicine generation, she embraced new science. She'd seen the alternatives in their full horror.

Sadly, I think there is less chance of that than me becoming 'America's Next Top Model' or winning the Nobel Prize for Physics.

I thought I had imagined that! So she really was going to run wellness retreats? That’s awful.

Although I do know a few people who 'teach writing' who probably shouldn't. Some people just have an slightly overblown idea of their own abilities, and, for example, on the strength of self-publishing a couple of books set themselves up as 'writing coaches' or take it upon themselves to teach others how to write. If they had huge sales I'd maybe understand, but only getting a couple of reviews per book seems to indicate this is not the case. So there's nothing stopping Sal from setting out to teach others how to write plodding, obvious narrative.

Referencing the Pwllheli office (above) has reminded me of who I would like to hear from. When posters have said what they'd like to be in the Sky documentary - I always think of those other office workers, the ones that Martin Hemmings was worried he wouldn't be able to pay.

I've thought they may have wanted to keep in the background as it was Ros, and her daughter's, story to tell. But, I do wonder how the awful situation affected them.

Since the "Observer" article there have emerged 100s if not 1000s of quotes/reports so I have totally forgotten the actual source of the info. But I'm sure it was a Pwllheli local who said that it was Sally Walker whom they remembered always appeared in the downstairs office, welcoming enquirers and customers, whilst her boss Martin Hemmings was working in the office above. So in a position of trust - not only as a book-keeper but as the public's first port of call re. the business.

Not sure if this article has been posted before.

How The Salt Path bewitched a nation | The Spectator Australia

I hope the documentary will have some content about Pwellheli and what went on @UpfromSomerset, Salray had a position of great trust and I agree @BecalmedBrandy it would be interesting to hear from Salray's colleagues, and others who knew them from before the house was repossessed. I know in past posts that people have thought the loan arranged by Tim's uncle was heavy on the interest, but it was a huge amount of money they were asking for and if the nephew is right, it was known in the family that the pair were considered a bad lot, they were kind of lucky that he loaned them the money at all.

I realise that Salray was frightened of being prosecuted and receiving a custodial sentence, although many embezzlers don't go to prison, the ones most likely to receive custodial sentences seem to be the ones, where the embezzler has been close to the victim and it has been happening over a long period of time and they have been trusted. Salray must have felt she was likely to go to prison, if it went to court. The loan was not going to be repaid without income to support it and I don't think the holiday let would generate that level of income, not to keep them and make repayments.

I can't remember that piece @NaughtyNoodler it is sad to remember how Martin Hemmings felt, he and his wife had treated the Winn's and their children well, Martin probably thought he was helping the family, providing a good job, being a good boss and showing kindness on a personal level along with his wife.

I think it would also be interesting to hear from the people that had tenanted Haye Farm before the Walkers. Maybe they were local and did not live in the farmhouse but I was surprised when I read that the farmhouse was in such poor condition and took several months to make habitable, yet a rent was being charged even if it was a peppercorn one. Although doing up houses is, of course, a staple for the Walkers, with only the flat in Polruan not needing any work.

In the Rick Stein, at Haye Farm, it shows the local couple who actually made the cider. This was from 2004. I don't know when Bill Cole bought it. It is from about 1.30mins in, on iPlayer.

Regarding the rate of interest, it occurs to me that (1) we don't know what the lender was told about the length of time for which ithe loan was needed, (2) the lender didn't have security for his £100k , or at least not full security, because the house was already very heavily mortgaged (it involved real risk of loss - which ultimately came to pass), and (3) we don't know whether the lender had to borrow some/all of the amount himself or what return he would have made on the £100k if he had not parted with it under the loan. So the rate doesn't seem at unreasonable to me.

Do you have the series name and number please?

Sorry - I've had enough of seeing them!

BBC iPlayer - Rick Stein's Cornwall - Series 3: Episode 2

I admit to not having R absolutely every FT and this may have been covered/castigated before, but I was very, very unimpressed to see a “Promoted by Mumsnet” ad for TSP today in the middle of some completely unrelated thread. Someone needs to update their advertising algorithms…

Thanks for all the thoughtful and exhaustive posts - they’ve contributed a lot to my understanding of the issue.

@booksnbaking yes, that advert is distinctly bugging!

We might find out where the uncle got the money in the documentary@Peladon, if there was no equity left in the house, the Walkers must have known they couldn't pay it back, I suppose with what they tried with the book and raffle, they might have thought that somehow they would make the money, if the uncles business hadn't gone under they would have had more time. Losing the house has actually turned into the thing that has brought them enough wealth to buy multiple houses, they should be grateful that they got repossessed.

I dislike these adverts too @booksnbaking I think @Vroomfondleswaistcoat said that they would have been block booked and paid for in advance, I hope they stop soon :)

PS regarding the rate of interest on the £100k loan, additional risk factors could have been (4) the borrower's income or lack of it, and (5) the reason for the loan being needed. If I had £100k, I wouldn't have loaned it at 18%pa or probably any rate at all.

I agree @Peladon it is surprising that they managed to get the uncle (half uncle?) to loan the money at all, maybe this will be explained a bit more. Salray and Tim seem to be very good at getting what they want from people, Tim is supposed to be the charming one, but Salray is ultimately very successful at manipulation herself.

Ah right, block booking makes sense, thanks! (I knew someone wise would have the answer.)

PPS: Still thinking of the loan. IIRC, his business failed a year or two after he hamded over the loan money. By making the loan, the relative reduced by (at least) £100k the resources that he had available to support his own business. Of course, we don't know that he would have used the £100k to support his own business or whether it would have been enough to keep the business afloat, but it struck me that, in principle, making such a big loan (and not getting repaid) could have consequences for a lender beyond just having less money in the bank.

Good point. Sal uses a strange argument in TSP. Namely that the loan was illegal because Cooper shouldn't have been allowed to withdraw the money from the company and make the loan to them. Cooper stated in court that it was a personal loan and not a company loan and the judge sided with him. But it's strange that Sal felt a grievance towards Cooper. After all, whether the loan came from him or his company it was still a £100k loan which enabled her to repay the Hemmings and might also have prevented her being prosecuted and ending up with a custodial jail sentence.

And it didn't really matter, surely, where he got the money from? The end result would have been the same eventually, because the Walkers weren't going to be able to repay it, so it would have been called in at some point or another when it was obvious to the lender that they couldn't even pay the interest?

Or was it that Sal was already planning a book, one that, perhaps, featured some kind of family loss and the couple going on a long walk to try to get away from their problems? Maybe she had already written this book and was just going over it again trying to make it current, relevant and appealing? This might explain why TSP got accepted so quickly after she'd 'written' it - the book was already extant and Sal just went in and added more drama of the house loss to the 'walk under duress' parts?

It is interesting @Peladon, that amount of money might have saved the uncles failing business, or as you say he might have chosen not too. Interesting too as @NaughtyNoodler points out, Salray actually tried to knock him in court, because presumably she wanted him to have all the liability for the debt, not her and Tim. I have also wondered if there was any blackmail, emotional or otherwise involved in getting the loan. And I agree @Vroomfondleswaistcoat that Salray could have already formulated a book, she had always wanted to be a writer, so very likely had some material, if not a book.