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!"

The Walkers have done well out off their scam - they got away with it for years, made a lot of money and got a lot of positive attention. They got caught out but it looks like no one can take their money from them and they're set up for life. Lying low would be the best way to live out their lives but their minds may not work that way and they might regard themselves as victims of a hate campaign and seek more publicity and to write more books.

Timoth is a pensioner soon and SalRay not that far behind so they can't do the strenuous walking stuff for much longer. Time to retire with as much grace as possible - that's what their friends should say if they have any.

I agree keeping a low profile would be the best option for SW and MW. They’ve made enough money to live more comfortably than many people.
I don’t agree that age should stop you doing long distance walking .
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-northamptonshire-68839260.amp

There may be vested interests (agent/publisher) who, despite the scandal, still see Sal as a money making machine. Jeffrey Archer blotted his copy book some years ago but is still churning out best sellers aged 85....

Not sure if this article has been shared before. It deals with the tricky subject of emotional truth.

Defending a memoir’s ‘emotional truth’ is a high-risk strategy | RNZ

Depends on state of the older person's health.

@NaughtyNoodler

'does Moth have CBD and was his original diagnosis deliberately engineered by Raymoth to ensure a misdiagnosis?'

That's quite possible - some manipulators play the long game.

I'm not sure. I think it might be a different matter if the books are memoir and sold at least in part on the basis of "raw honesty" (etc, etc ad nauseum) rather than novels, however crappy. It's a risk that the public, or least enough of them to shift books, will feel the same after the Wizard's curtain has fallen.

We all know the numerous novelists and poets whose personal conduct was less than exemplary, but their work being fiction stands on its own merits rather than the peddling of a supposedly true sob story.

Unfortunately I fear that many of these questions aren't going to be answerable without Sal and Tim cooperating with the documentary, which I somehow can't quite see...hmmm...

External contributors can only do so much and answer so many questions, but stuff like WHY she embezzled the money and what it was spent on - I can't see anyone else being able to answer. And I fear that, if questioned, she would just turn on the tears and plead 'my truth, poor mental health and Tim basically crippled and unable to care for himself...' as reasons not to be put on the spot any further.

Was going to say exactly the same @Uricon2
I’ve never read a Jeffrey Archer book and had to familiarise myself with his blotted copy book on Wikipedia…. That’s quite a lot of blots! I do wish the upcoming documentary would be a bit more accessible though. Our household has neither Now or Sky subscriptions. I’d love to see it in print form, a possible one off magazine or even a book afterwards.

I think you can take out a month's subscription to Now (flexible plan) and then cancel

Start your Entertainment Membership

I honestly feel that once the documentary is out, there will be fairly full coverage in at least some of the legacy media. I'd be happy (health permitting) to attempt a transcription but I'm not sure the MN post format lends itself to it easily. I'm sure we can work up a decent precis if needed.

I see the Insta 'path pic' now has 2698 likes. I may have detoured to give Our Simon and Angela H a few likes on their most recent posts!

Very true. She’s already given the “mistakes were made in the business” reason for her embezzlement. Boris Johnson said the same words.. I think our guesses are closer to the truth than she ever will be. She really doesn’t care… and here she is again, posting a teaser pic of (I assume because I haven’t seen it) TSWCP, as if to say “I’m here. Who’s with me? I love you all… but just in case I don’t, I’m keeping comments disabled. ‘K?”

I agree @HatStickBoots there is a difference with TSP, Salray and JA, as @Uricon2 put so well. If @Vroomfondleswaistcoat is right and I think they are, we will have some of our questions answered by the documentary, but there will be things that only Salray and Tim will know the truth about, and I think you are right @HatStickBoots some of our guesses are likely to be correct. I don't have Sky, I'm going to do as @NaughtyNoodler suggests and take a month's subscription of the other channel to watch. The really tangibly things that can be proven to have been falsely represented, Moth's health and their homelessness claims, I hope those things are looked at in more detail, so people really understand what went on.

I don't personally hold with suggestions that Salray has done positive things as a by product of her falsehoods, as much as they raised awareness of CBD, they made health claims that have been detrimental to people, this could be seen as a public health issue even. If Salray's description of homelessness is what people want to believe homelessness is like, they are looking to the wrong person for that information, I would like that to be covered as well.

It would make really good reading if Salray turned on the comments @HatStickBoots :)

I don't have the means to watch either, and a woeful record of forgetting to cancel subscriptions taken out, so I shall watch this thread with interest as I hope those fortunate (?) enough to see it will be reporting back.

I very much hope that Our Chloe has enough evidence to do a thorough and unrefutable takedown of many of Sal's claims (mainly the CBD and theft charges). I'm not so worried about whether they walked the whole SWCP because I don't think that has public impact; similarly I'd like a raising of awareness that Sal probably wasn't eligible for the CB prize, but again I don't think there's any public impact in that. Most readers won't even have heard of the CB prize, let alone know she won it under questionable circumstances.

I think there are enough problems which do have public impact that need investigating, and hope these don't get diluted by 'allegations'.. Prove what can be proven, perhaps allude to some of the other problems but don't get dug in to arguments that Sal is only going to shout 'MY TRUTH, MY TRUTH!' about.

It would make really good reading if Salray turned on the comments :)

Wouldn't it though @Freshsocks? The very reason she won't, of course.

If you turn on the comments, you lose control. That isn't her MO.

In relation to the Christopher Bland prize @Vroomfondleswaistcoat, I wonder if they will speculate as to why Tim set up a publishing company for the raffle book, they must in their hearts know that Salray was the only author they published. It's many years now that Salray has been used to people treating her like she is a proper author, people fawning over her, telling her how wonderful she is, they do say that you should never believe your own publicity, I think Salray is probably realising that Raynor Winn will never be able to turn on the comments again.

I know, it looks hugely suss, Tim sets up publishing company to publish one book... but they could always plead that it WASN'T Sal, and bring up some obscure cousin (or even daughter, how old was their DD when HNTDDD was written?) who "really" wrote the book but is now either uncontactable, dead or doesn't want to speak about it. They can claim it was anyone.

I don't think it could ever be provable 100% that Sal wrote that book. WE might all know it, but Sal's response would probably just be that 'mistakes were made', because slipping into the passive voice seems to be her go to.

I don’t know. The general public will often overlook vast amounts of well-evidenced allegations, negative truths and inconvenient facts because they like the way a book makes them feel.

A better comparison than J Archer would be someone like the ‘medium’ Doris Stokes, whose books and performances were hugely best-selling even after she was debunked as a fraud — presumably because so many people liked the sweet, grandmotherly shtick, and the warm and fuzzy version of the afterlife she peddled. That sweet and wholesome brand has largely persisted long after her death, despite well-evidenced claims that she was a hard-nosed scam artist who preyed on the vulnerable, planting people whose recent tragedies she knew all about and longtime fans in the front rows of her shows, and that several police departments said she’d had no involvement whatsoever in murder cases she’d claimed to have solved. Some of her books are still in print, and she’s been dead since the mid-eighties. I suppose she’s proof that for some people the facts don’t get in the way of a good story, and that brands can outlive reputations.

I think some diehard RW fans may be similar. The brand clearly touched a chord in them, and they want more of it.

Good points @WellSurely but will there be enough true believers to sell the volume of books Salray has previously benefited from? Documentary aside, I am convinced that there will not be a review of any new offering that doesn't give a potted history of the scandal. All those journos/reviewers who were generous with praise for TSP etc are unlikely to be so now, IMO, for fear of looking gullible if nothing else.

It is I think too tarnished a brand to come back to anything like the previous level of success.

Interestingly this week I've overheard a couple of conversations at work with people about TSP. One said they were totally devastated when they heard it was made up because they'd found it so inspiring. But they clearly had no doubts that the revelations were true.
The other was between a couple of ladies talking about films and one recommended TSP, and the other said she'd gone off them since the revelations. The other lady didn't know about them, but was horrified when she was told.

I doubt the documentary will air here in Australia so I’m hoping for a full report here on MN. However I will be grateful for any scraps of information I can get.

I agree all reviewers will mention it. Most people don’t read newspaper book reviews, though, and I’ve always thought that TSP attracted (for some reason) a lot of fans who aren’t generally readers. Not quite sure how — combination of word of mouth and ‘Raynor’s Winn’’s high media profile making it seem very accessible, familiar, warm and fuzzy, and an easy read?

My mother doesn’t read at all, other than local newspaper, but I know that the only time she’s been interested enough in a book to read one, it is almost invariably a memoir by someone she feels very familiar with from radio and tv chat show appearances when they’re promoting it. The book is appealing to her then, because it’s someone she ‘knows’. (I remember her reading the Hannah Hauxwell books after seeing the tv documentaries, for instance.)

I can entirely imagine her developing that kind of awareness of the Walkers as ‘lovely people, and wasn’t it terrible what happened to them?’ and buying TSP, but remaining totally unaware of the allegations, or, if someone made her aware of them, not really grasping why they were important. She’s a naive, unquestioning reader. If something appears in a book or on the radio, then it must be true. If the radio were to tell her the book was a lie, I think her head would explode from the competing narratives.

It was true during her lifetime, but now, among the cognoscenti, Doris Stokes is regarded as a joke. Which, in some ways is worse because of the damage she might have done to the bereaved. It almost laughs it off.

I am hoping that, should OWH actually emerge in October, it will be regarded with disdain. I think that might be Sal's best punishment, when people are reviewing her book and saying 'well, yes, she goes on a bit about suffering and how hard her life is, but none of us believe a word of it.'

And I think @Uricon2 is right, that journalists and professional reviewers will be wary.

Sure, but I suppose I’m not talking about the cognoscenti but the non-reader on the Clapham omnibus. I bet if you asked a lot of people who aren’t generally readers, probably overwhelmingly older women who’ve experienced bereavement, they’d say ‘Oh, wasn’t she that nice medium? Looked a bit like the Queen Mother?’ Rather than ‘Wasn’t she the fraud?’

She’s been dead since the 1980s, and her methods long publicly debunked, but on Good Reads there are lots of reviews from the last few years of her books, saying things like ‘Brilliant. What an amazing lady’ and ‘Such an amazing story, loved reading it, would recommend it to anyone!’ There’s one from 2023 saying they’d listened to her Desert Island Discs and she was ‘so lovely’ they had to get her book, and are now such a fan they’re going to chase up everything she ever wrote. Lots of references to ‘comfort’ and ‘hope’ and being given the books by someone after a bereavement.

I’m assuming that’s kind of what we’re dealing with with the TSP phenomenon.

Relatives brought us several of her books when I was little, so they’re probably still knocking around my parents’ house.

(I suppose we’re the ‘Raynor Winn’ cognoscenti on here, aren’t we?😀)