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!"

Also
The Salt Path
Just days after Raynor learns that Moth, her husband of 32 years, is terminally ill, their home is taken away and they lose their livelihood. With nothing left and little time, they make the brave and impulsive decision to walk the 630 miles of the sea-swept South West Coast Path, from Somerset to Dorset, via Devon and Cornwall.

Carrying only the essentials for survival on their backs, they live wild in the ancient, weathered landscape of cliffs, sea and sky. Yet through every step, every encounter and every test along the way, their walk becomes a remarkable journey.

The Salt Path is an honest and life-affirming true story of coming to terms with grief and the healing power of the natural world. Ultimately, it is a portrayal of home, and how it can be lost, rebuilt and rediscovered in the most unexpected ways.
'A beautiful, thoughtful, lyrical story of homelessness, human strength and endurance' Guardian

'A tale of triumph: of hope over despair; of love over everything' Sunday Times

'Mesmerising. It is one of the most uplifting, inspiring books that I've ever read' i

'The most inspirational book of this year' The Times

'Luminescent. A literary phenomenon' Mail on Sunday

'This is what you need right now to muster hope and resilience . . . a beautiful story and a reminder that humans can endure adversity' Stylist

'A beautiful book, it really lives up to the hype . . . an enjoyable, gentle yet moving read' Pandora Sykes on The High Low

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Should I subscribe out of curiosity?

Is that content new, @Aussiebornandbred? I don’t think I ever looked at SW’s website apart from at the statement.

The last time I looked at the website it didn't have the subscription pop up, that is new @WellSurely.

It’s new to me. Not there last time I looked a few days ago. Alerted to it by RainyTuesdaysAndSunnyWednesdays post
Thanks RainyTuesdaysAndSunnyWednesdays

She is testing the water with the same lies. We know she will be emboldened if she gets support. She has been accused of some shocking deception and this is appalling for the victims.

Instagram photo is up to 2107 likes after 13 hours.
i don’t know how Instagram works. It says she has 79.7k followers but only 187 following.

It's what used to be on the website prior to the exposé. She's just reinstated it.

That's interesting @SimoArmo, they must be gearing up ready for post documentary activity. By the way I totally agree with you about the liquidators, I was trying to convey that Salray had accused the uncle of dishonesty in court, in real life, in the same way she accuses Cooper in her rebuttal.

You can buy followers on Instagram. Many of her followers only have one or two posts or are so they're most likely bots. Likes don't really mean anything as far too many people automatically click the like button.

Gotcha. I think I assumed that had always been there alongside the statement.

The smaller number is the number of Instagram accounts she is following. The larger is the number following her.

A Google search suggests that services which sell fake "likes" on Instagram usually don't post all of the "likes" instantaneously. That makes sense, because if Instagram realises that they are fakes it might take action of some kind.

Google also advises that the cost of fake "likes" is surprisingly low:

"Typical Pricing Examples
Prices vary widely among different online services. Here are some representative examples of package costs:

• 100 likes: Around $2.50 to $3.89. Some sites offer as low as $0.10, though the quality is questionable.
• 500 likes: Roughly $6 to $13.
• 1,000 likes: Typically $10 to $30, with some providers offering rates as low as $24 or as high as $29.99.
• 40,000 likes: Can cost anywhere from $179.99 to over $260."

I assume she's poking her head up over the parapet just to see what happens. I mean, she can't exactly get shot down in flames until she appears in public but I'd guess she wants to see how many loyal and faithful fans she still has.

Not sure what the point is of doing this before the documentary, because that's likely to reach an even bigger audience, but maybe PRH need her to start raising the profile of OWH (which I would hope she's no longer 'working on' if it's out next October, but I suppose she might have had to do a MAJOR rewrite).

Could she have signed a mega bucks deal to do an exclusive interview I wonder. On her terms, as usual.

I keep forgetting to ask: those of you who were her readers and took an interest in her SM posts before July this year; did she make regular updates about Moth’s health? I always assumed that she didn’t because I’d see questions such as “how is Moth?” turning up in online searches. I don’t do IG or FB myself but I can’t recall ever being directed to a Raynor Winn social media page when typing in that question myself. This has made me think that she only writes a version of Moth in the books and reiterates the same in interviews. The rebuttal refers to her books as being full of her documentation of his health and the ways in which she nurses him, which is not the same thing as posting a daily update to the millions of people who bought into their life and actually care about this supposedly non fictional person. Also, her books are full of lies. When you realise that somebody has been lying consistently to you, at that point you don’t listen any more. Some people here think she’s not a Machiavellian schemer but I think she’s just fooled them with the same act that worked on the Hemmings’ and Bill Cole.
I believe that latest piece from her website was the only thing on it prior to July, again I was expecting a blog on it. But then again, why should she blog anything when she can write it and sell it? I see the lies are still in full.
Catching up…
The court case as it reads in TSP. When I first read this, I did think it was very weakly presented and didn’t seem real. I was waiting for the Queen of Hearts to pipe up. I shrugged and continued reading anyway.
😖

Isn't the last thing she said publicly something to do with 'you'll all be hearing from my lawyers'? Followed by a ringing silence?

I just looked again and her number of followers is down to 79.6 k followers. So some accounts have stopped following her since she posted the photo yesterday. (Possibly people who’d forgotten they were following her Instagram and were reminded when her post popped up? )

I think @Vroomfondleswaistcoat is probably right that this is a head above the parapet to see which way the wind is blowing. Comments turned off, no caption, so no possibility of inviting ire and communicating nothing other than ‘I’m still here’, with a reminder of TSP — at least, I’m assuming that the photo is of somewhere on the SWCP? To elevate our minds with thoughts of how inspirational TSP was?

Hard to know whether the timing is significant. If it weren’t for the documentary, I’d just think it was a matter of her agent advising her to get back out there to start work on rehabilitating her image ahead of OWH. But as there is a documentary coming soon, who knows? So that her first step back in the public eye won’t be ‘You’re all meanies and I’m taking legal advice again’?

As others have said she’s trying to slink back and test the water. I think if she had a legal case against CH and The Observer she’d have been shouting from the rooftops by now. The documentary wouldn’t have been going ahead because everyone would be too cautious.

Well, the defence against defamation and the like is proving the truth of what you said about whatever it was, or at least that you had valid, evidenced grounds for believing it -- so when Rebekah Vardy sued Coleen Rooney for libel in the Wagatha Christie courtcase, and although the preliminary hearing found that CR had used defamatory terms of RV, the high court finally dismissed RV's claim on the grounds that what CR said about her was substantially true. Hence no defamation.

The Observer could not have published CH's story without having to think ahead to possible legal action, and her being able to substantiate her claims very fully, including those sources whose identities she doesn't reveal in the story.

If required legally, she would be able to furnish recordings, transcripts etc of all her interviews with the eight people she references in the story, confirmation from the police that MH reported the theft, the Land Registry documentation, county court summonses, the debt collector letters arriving at their former home etc etc, plus statements from the nine neurologists she consulted about TW's condition. And, obviously, evidence that she contacted both SW and TW with questions that would have allowed them to 'correct' her version of events, but to no response.

If SW did seek legal advice (and one imagines she did), I'm assuming they told her she didn't have a case.

@HumoursofBandon Thanks for clearly setting that out.

The Observer position that impressed me was how they carefully examined whether to expose SalRay was in the public interest - as she had not been to court. They went with it, concluding her ongoing claims were detrimental medically.

I continue to find this powerful.

I agree with @HumoursofBandon . The Observer and their lawyers are not stupid and if there was even a threat of a credible, winnable legal case, it wouldn't have gone ahead. Ditto IMO Sky, Our Chloe and the forthcoming documentary. If Raymoth and their people were vigorously pursuing action, they wouldn't be doing the prep publicity for the docu at events like Dulverton.

I would hazard a guess there will be no case, because they haven't got one, the truth having been told and I'm sure incoming. No amount of pretty snaps of coastal pathways are going to help.

Meanwhile, PRH seem to be following their accustomed policy of not doing or saying very much at all. It will be interesting indeed to see what changes in that quarter in forthcoming months.

I'd never looked back through SW's Instagram before.

Much of it was exactly what you'd expect. Photos of TW in a landscape, photos of landscape without TW, book tour and Gigspanner tour publicity shots, photos of piles of her hardbacks lying in the grass with a few fallen apples,cute dog photos, cute barnowl photos, cute mole photos, cute photos of walking boots and chunky socks, a few mildly self-righteous posts about how she's using up leftovers while too many people buy meal kits and diet fads to remove menopausal belly fat.

But on March 16th 2020, there's a post saying that 'after thought and consideration with my team at Michael Joseph, we've decided to move the publication of TWS to September 3rd. As many of you know, Moth isn't well, and needs me to be fit and healthy to care for him. It's for this reason that we felt carrying out my book tour in May would be unwise.'

On March 1st, she'd posted an image of 3250 signed flyleaves she says are ready to be inserted into the hardbacks of TWS, which she says will go to print in 'a couple of weeks'.

I'm assuming that the 'illness' is just an excuse, that TW was not so unwell he couldn't be left, and that it was simply that SW had obviously struggled to write TWS, was very late with the MS (which I think she says somewhere), which then needed a lot of editing to get it into any kind of shape, and which meant that it missed its slot in the publication schedule. Which suggests it was in very bad shape indeed for PRH to postpone just ahead of going to print...

I mean, if Covid lockdown were the issue, why not just say?

Thank you @HumoursofBandon that's really interesting. I am not surprised at the lack of long meaningful updates about her beloved husband’s health.
ps all those photos sound very staged and representative of the brand image.

pps that part of website which brags about the CB prize is so wrong. She knows she wrote and published a previous book. She knows she wasn’t in the slightest bit eligible for it.

I'm really hoping that the upcoming Sky docudrama finally sheds light on the following:

• does Moth have CBD and was his original diagnosis deliberately engineered by Raymoth to ensure a misdiagnosis?
• has a copy of HNTDDD been unearthed, and if so, what does it tell us about the identity of the author, Izzy Wyn-Thomas? What impact will this have on her award of the inaugural RLS Christopher Bland prize in 2019?
• why if they were so convinced that the original diagnosis was wrong, didn't they seek a second opinion?
• were Raymoth ever really homeless? They seem to have friends and family willing to put them up
• was the walk on the SWCP based on a moment of inspiration ( seeing 500 Mile Walkies in a packing case with the baliffs at the door) or planned for some time?
• how long did the walk take ( 2/3/4 years) and how much of the SWCP did they actually walk?
• was Moth ever mistaken for SA and did the encounter with Grant occur as described in TSP?
• why did SW embezzle so much and why did they invest in a property in France which has fallen into ruin since the original investment?
• why did the nephew accuse his uncle and aunt of being pathological liars who leave a trail of destruction in their wake?
• is Polly accurately depicted? When did they meey Anna and get an offer to rent her flat in Polruan?
• how did TSP come to be published? Was the book based on Moth's margin comments in PD's guide to the SWCP and originally nothing more than a birthday present, never planned for public consumption? " did Raymoth's children play a role in the saga, or were they innocent bystanders oblivious to what was going on?
• to what degree were SW's agent and publisher complicit in a cover up or were they innocent if credulous stooges?

If the Sky docudrama manages to shed additional light on these questions that will be fantastic. If OWH does get published and people decide to read it, that's fine. But at least, like a packet of fags, there will be a health warning available and people can decide whether to read OWH based on those facts.