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!"

I wonder if Sal has become trapped in a misanthropic vortex of unhappiness underpinned by her web of lies and deceit and the fact that the people who lap up her books are people she secretly despises. It's a vicious cycle. The more success she has, the more miserable she becomes. Maybe I'm totally wrong and every night it's kitchen disco time, but I somehow doubt it.

Yes, exactly those two groups. Yet, she also reveals her deep conservatism:

we dawdled for a while watching two women eat a cream tea at ten thirty in the morning. Crackington Haven

It is hilarious to see her righteous indignation - worthy of the Temperance movement.

Pursed of lip and hoicked of bosom as usual. People eat cream tea in the morning, burn them, burn them all!

Ironic isn't it that according to her some of the Doc Martin appreciating, cream tea eating cohort of the Uncool Old (great phrase, @WellSurely ) apparently knew who Simon Armitage was, unlike the bandanna'd, Beowulf loving Raymoth, who were innocent of his very existence. He wasn't PL at the time and a lot of his poems tend towards the edgier end of the poetic spectrum.

(I feel there should be a lot of 'allegedlys' and 'apparentlys' in the above paragraph, scatter at will!)

I'm so glad it's getting better @BecalmedBrandy and hope The Contraption will soon be a thing of history.

Yes, you get the impression that one more set of the Uncool Old blithely eating cream teas at 10 am or Australians eating a full ‘mound’ of Fat Apples breakfast apiece, and SW would start pointing and shrieking ‘I saw Goody Proctor dancing with the Devil!’

Also

we dawdled for a while watching two women eat a cream tea at ten thirty in the morning. Crackington Haven

Can you imagine anything more depressing and boring if you are living on Pot Noodles than watching people eating stuff you can't afford, at any time of day? Was she hoping they'd throw her a scone or something? I have a vision of Raymoth surveilling these ladies like a couple of Cornwall's more aggressive seagulls (mind you, in my experience they would just help themselves)

She doesn't just have a tin ear for dialogue, it extends to general human behaviour.

So many excellent observations! 👏🏻🤩😍
I agree, the absolute irony!

On another note, I’m really worried about the pins in your hand @BecalmedBrandy please don’t overdo anything 🙏🏻

I shall be looking forward to a tot or two of sloe gin to accompany the documentary@Uricon2 , I think we will be in need of a large stiff drink to view it :) I'm also hoping @DisappointedReader is well.
Salray is so condescending about so many people, especially the old ones, such good examples from @BecalmedBrandy (hope you won't need the contraption for long) also from@Uricon2 and @WellSurely , the uncool old, is how Salray views them. I particularly dislike this, Moth will get around them attitude, it just reinforces the feeling that they have always been scamming people, working out how to get their own way. You are right @NaughtyNoodler Salray seems to despise the very people who have bought her books, It's difficult to speculate as to what is happening over at the Walker Winn's house.

💐Sheer brilliance!

@Freshsocks yes, “Moth will get round them attitude”… as if they’ve trained themselves to always be one step ahead and in control of every situation. Why in that instance did Moth need to charm some innocent, elderly ladies. Aren’t these the most vulnerable members of our society? It’s shameful.
It reads as though they are a double act, Moth distracts and she rakes in the money, kind of double act.

I hope they’ll be watching the documentary!

I'd wager they will. It's really clear they haven't done anything of a legal nature since it broke and I'd speculate have been lying low (instead of their customary low lying) hoping it will all go away, other than to eg Those Pesky Kids on MN.

It hasn't and what fascinates me is what, if anything, PRH have to say afterwards. " Never apologise, never explain" works in some circumstances but not if you are going to continue publishing things that you will sell as "unflinchingly honest" etc, etc. The jig has been up for nearly half a year but this could be the final straw.

It is sleazy the way they operate as a well honed double act @HatStickBoots especially in relation to older women, they have no genuine compassion for the vulnerable in society, I think as many have said before, Salray's attitude was excused or mistakenly put down to the situation she was in by her readers, who excused a lot of things, putting them down to desperation and bitterness, but what a pair they really are, shameful as you say @HatStickBoots.

If as you suspect @NaughtyNoodler Salray has become more unhappy as her success has grown, maybe her readership was not as cool as she would have liked, that could niggle. If this whole scam has been an open thing within the family, it must have been a joint effort between Sal and Tim, it's more difficult to speculate if the children are involved, they must have read the books and know they deviate from reality. They will most likely have gained financially from their parents deception.

There might be disappointment that a fly has appeared in the ointment, if plans had been made, they could have been based on an expectation that Raynor would have the continued support of her readers and the cash would continue to roll in and allow them to go into the wellness business, with the possibility of making themselves and their children wealthier.

It must have been a strange existence for them living with TSP lies, doubled down on in subsequent books and interviews. I wonder how they talk about it as a family, have they justified it to themselves as artistic licence?

Oh yes@HatStickBoots I hope they will be watching the documentary, do you think they will all sit and watch it as a family @Uricon2 ? probably not with popcorn:)

I hope will they be watching the documentary, do you think they will all sit and watch it as a family ? probably not with popcorn:)

If I were them @Freshsocks I'd be watching from behind the sofa as if viewing a particularly annoyed Dalek.

Whatever the docu contains was enough to make a pretty big TV company decide it was worth buying and screening. It will either be a lot more detail on stuff we know, new revelations or I really suspect a mix of both. How Chloe H did her research is interesting, but a lot of it on 'known stuff' is already out there. Even if it is just that though, how she uncovered it all, it will still potentially reach a bigger/different audience. No scenario is great for Raymoth.

@Freshsocks it's more difficult to speculate if the children are involved, they must have read the books and know they deviate from reality. They will most likely have gained financially from their parents deception.

I wondered how the wider family feel about her using her mother's death as a moveable feast. Talking about her in TSP and, I understand, moving the death to feature in TWS.

Oh yes @NaughtyNoodler, I used to favour a cushion in front of the face as extra protection :)
If only they were on Gogglebox, that would be fun. The documentary might have members of the wider family participating @BecalmedBrandy it will be interesting to hear what they think.

Apologies if this has been posted before:

Www.cjr.org/the_media_today/grains-salt-raynor-winn-moth-britain-scandal-publishing-nonfiction.php

I suspect she will be watching, shouting 'LIES!' and 'Nobody is seeing it from my point of view!' at the screen now and then. I do feel a certain sympathy for her, nobody wants to see their whole life taken apart and critiqued in public, however, my sympathy is limited because she could have put a stop to all this by coming out and apologising. A proper good mea culpa, an 'I have learned from the experience' and a withdrawal from public life after instructing her publisher to remove anything that relates to 'truth' (unflinching or otherwise) from the publicity material and a good hefty donation to the CBD charities - that might go some way to rehabilitation.

I suspect she's just going to double down and there will be shouts about legal action and solicitors being instructed as soon as the docu has aired.

< hand up > I also used to hide behind a cushion when the daleks came on. In fact the opening theme tune sent me scurrying behind the sofa.

I can imagine that too @Vroomfondleswaistcoat ”self righteously frothing” Sal, glass of wine sloshing everywhere as she rages at the television. She mentioned that her legal team was hard at work straight after the initial exposé. There’s been a lot of tumbleweed whistling along since then.

Sloshing and frothing.

Thank you, I don't remember that piece @Peladon, I think the people who are talking about being duped by Salray are great, this was a sophisticated scam that played with people's emotions and fears, how can anyone really guard against someone like Salray who will lie to yours or anyone's face.

I do agree @Vroomfondleswaistcoat it must be awful to have your life critiqued in public. Not creating the lies and writing about them would have been sensible, and as you say she could have avoided this documentary even when her lies were exposed. The trouble for Salray is, she put a version of her life out there for all of us to look at, she was happy when everyone was looking at her life according to her narrative, now she has to take the rough with the smooth.

Just realised I replied to @NaughtyNoodler about Darleks, I meant to put @Uricon2, sorry more mistakes were made.

Love the fact that libraries are still pushing The Salt Path as shining a beacon of light on the plight of the homeless and claiming that this was one of the main reasons why so many people bought it!

For a brief moment I thought the hashtag read #sueyourlibrary rather than #useyourlibrary!

I love the idea of Salray, wine glass in hand sloshing and frothing@HatStickBoots, shouting at the telly as @Vroomfondleswaistcoat says.

That theme music did the same to me @HatStickBoots, I was behind the sofa, cushion at the ready :)

Do you think this stuff is being put out by people who don't want to accept they have been duped @NaughtyNoodler ? maybe they are trying to find something worthy about all this for solace.

"Whatever your revisionist views on the book are now" reminds me an awful lot of "mistakes were made"...... The raging against the dying of the light?

The Rick Stein programme with the excerpt featuring the Walkers at Haye Farm was on tonight on one of those endless repeat channels.

I had seen it before, and I must have read TSP before I saw it last time, because I remember thinking they seemed rather odd and thinking (as I did when I first read TSP), ‘Well, these are understandably embittered, angry people who aren’t pretending to be ok with what life has dealt them’. Rick Stein didn’t seem particularly at ease, either. I think I thought at the time that maybe the cider wasn’t that good, and he was only covering Haye Farm because of TSP and the backstory.

This time, what struck me was that their body language was definitely odd and rather ill at ease, they didn’t seem at home on the farm (not surprising as I think from the timeline they’d already left by the time of filming, or at least were about to?), or at all at ease with the cider-making process (again, not surprising if they’d never made any cider). Also that TW, looking at Rick Stein and agreeing solemnly that he had a terminal illness, looked in robust good health— in fact SW is the one who looks rather pallid and unwell, but dominates the talk, with her gaspy little runs of speech and problems with certain consonants. TW says little.

TW looks rather hangdog throughout, apart from the vertical hair, and a moment when he lights up when showing Rick Stein how the cider makers of the past had chalked a stick in a wall groove before fitting it into the cider press. Then you see a bit of the charm SW is so insistent on.

Some man, unnamed, is the one actually operating the press in one scene, but TW is finetuning it with the historic stick in another. SW goes in with a glass and gives Rick Stein some fresh juice — and he says something like ‘Not too sweet, nice acidity’ and SW makes some quip about it being ‘history in a glass’, and we cut to a shot of some barrels.

But when you think about it, any normal cider farm would give Rick Stein some actual cider from a previous vintage, not just apple juice. But they don’t. Presumably because there isn’t any? Which is a bit like visiting a vineyard and getting some fresh grape juice rather than wine…?

And then cut to Gigspanner rehearsing in a barn.

I can't remember seeing any bottles of cider from Haye Farm appearing on RW's IG feed. Which is a bit odd when you come to think of it. Isn't the apple harvest and opening the first bottles of cider the sort of thing you'd put on your IG feed if you wanted to build your "back to nature, living off the land" brand. Some of this period was during Covid when there can't have been much else to do on a cider orchard other than make cider. Baffling.

Maybe the whole cider making schtick was like other aspects of their brand (being homeless, suffering from a terminal neurological condition, having a small holding in Wales) something of a sham.

The "rewilding" of Haye Farm by Raymoth was pooh poohed by the person who used to live there.

Wow. And there you have it. Book 2 was also filled with fabrications. This lady said she used to own that farm so she would know!
It makes you wonder what else was made up.