Just reading your post, @ThompsonTwin, having listened to the podcast over the last few days, makes me realise a very basic truth.
That the single most important fact that binds together everything that’s been discovered about the Walkers, and (reading between the lines) is everywhere in SW’s three books, is not them being mystically attuned to the natural world and its rhythms from their earliest youth, but, fundamentally
(1) a disinclination to work at jobs like other people
and
(2) a desire for lots of money to buy expensive stuff and support a life of leisure and (1).
Think about it. SW and TW are continually skipping college and then work to be together when they first met. You might just put that down to immaturity. But then SW seems to have left her first job in mysterious circumstances, and TW ditto his life as a master plasterer, before they both quit whatever they were doing to move to Wales after a get rich quick scheme goes wrong.
They both seem to have been unemployed for long stretches of time in Wales, as SW mentions as notable in her ‘confession letter’ that she got a job at the Hemmingses and TW got a gardening job that ‘paid less than the dole’. Sure, they were renovating their house and raising kids, but that’s usually something people do as well as have jobs. The beginning of TSP makes it clear ‘Moth’ hasn’t worked in years, supposedly because of his health, and depicts SW as not working because she’s focused on the court case.
Every time the prospect of work comes up in TSP and TWS, SW bats it away with excuses. Either she’s too busy with the court case, or she doesn’t want to be away from Moth in the little time he has left, or she has no qualifications, or she has no CV because all her work, as builder, electrician, accountant etc etc has been on their ‘farm’, or she applies for jobs but no one will hire her because of her age.
SW claims that no work was available during the time at Polly’s, apart from the fleecewrapping job, which she sticks at, despite its brutal physical demands and poor pay.
‘Anne’ in the podcast says the plan was that they would stay with her, declare bankruptcy, get jobs and restart their lives. Yet after eighteen months, SW hasn’t applied for bankruptcy, neither of them have got jobs, neither of them is helping out around the farm while Anne’s husband recovers from a brain injury, SW quit the fleecewrapping job Anne got her after a few days to go on holiday, TW is claiming PIP, and they seem likely to stay on Anne’s farm in perpetuity, not working, not seeking work, and happy to be her responsibility.
TW then studies after they’re thrown out, presumably as a way of accessing student finance and accommodation and continuing not to work, and SW apparently continues not to work at all.
And then the miracle happens.
SW writes a substantially untrue ‘memoir’ recasting a pair of workshy scam artists as blamelessly unlucky, lovable types, too mutually devoted and free-spirited to move into emergency accommodation and get jobs after the double whammy of a death sentence and sudden homelessness, and it sells.
The reading public laps it up. Money rolls in. A fan offers them a gorgeous farm with light, amenable duties. But they don’t even perform those. TW erupts into fury when kindly Bill Cole tries to get temporary workers to do them. Anytime any questions are asked about their work shyness, TW pretends to be facing imminent death. They are now rich and could now repay with interest the money they stole from SW’s mother and TW’s parents, and which SW claimed to be desperate to repay, but hey, they’re dead, so why bother? Not performing their cider farm duties is too onerous, and is proving difficult to reconcile with taking four-month holidays and with the ‘yay, miracle cure’ narrative of the books, so they leave abruptly, leaving a mess of unpaid utilities, and rent somewhere with no requirement to work.
Unfortunately, Tim pretending to be dying and attention from a pesky reporter means that now everything’s perfect and they never have to work again, they’re saddled with an inability to publicly enjoy fast cars, luxury clothes and long holidays.
Still, they have what they’ve always wanted. Not having pesky jobs.