Thread 26 : To feel disappointed - and disgusted and vindicated now too - after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film?

[DisappointedReader]

NO POSTS PLEASE UNTIL THREAD 25 IS FULL

Please see the OP of Thread 25 for all the links to The Observer's reporting and podcast series, our threads one to 24 and so on.

After 25,000 posts there are still new things to discuss:
BBC Sounds - Secrets of the Salt Path - Available Episodes
If you are posting about a podcast, please start your post with the episode number you are commenting on, for clarity and to help others avoid spoilers if they wish to do so.

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. The Observer's excellent podcast series The Walkers (link in Thread 25) covers most things.
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, 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. For over 8 months we have done amazingly well together for 25 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.

As ever, as we embark on our 26th thread riding the community charabanc, keep to the path, no saltiness, eat fudge and drink cider.

NO POSTS PLEASE UNTIL THREAD 25 IS FULL: www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5485730-thread-25-to-feel-disappointed-and-disgusted-and-vindicated-now-too-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

Yes, I had just looked at the GMC agency and she is one of the 'stars' on their home page - which seems to be a new one. It all appears as 'nothing's changed' - you can still book her as she is an inspirational speaker. What is odd is that they have OWH to be published in October 2025.

Very interesting @MulberryBrandy can we book her then? :)

Would this be the fourth book which was supposed to have been published last year then? How can she still be 'working on it' when it ought to be with her publisher, edited and ready to go?

Or is it that she is being forced to rewrite it extensively in an attempt to fill another bath with hogwash, do we think?

Even so, the point is that it is curious RW has removed them from her website contacts. It suggests they don't want to deal with or manage any enquiries relating to her.

As OWH was written before OC's expose, it's now largely redundant imo. Moth was in fine fettle for the film premiere of TSP in May 2025, so that kind of undermines the narrative in OWH that Moth can't be with Sal on her C2C walk (presumably for health reasons....)

So I guess OWH may now be in the process of being rewritten, maybe to include her ruminations on the events of the last 12 months together with an update on Moth's health. Who knows!

Clearly they don't update the website very often. Maybe when they finally do we will find RW has been removed? Time will tell. I imagine an existing contract is keeping them tied to each other. The fourth (fifth) book might now just be their mutual obligation before her being terminated.

So basically - more hogwash.

OWH was only supposed to be being held back because of Sal's mental health, not for a complete rewrite. The blurb was already released, and will show how far the rewrites deviate from the original 'pity party' draft of the book, but it is beyond the pale to hold back publication just to give Sal a chance to explain herself, which is why I very much doubt that OWH will ever see the light of day.

Is it also a bit bonkers that it is still on preorder? I mean, as far as I know, usually books go on preorder a few months ahead of publication, not 2 years!

I wonder if they're leaving it up because otherwise they will have to reimburse everyone who has already paid for their preorder and they aren't quite set up for this yet?

ETA: And what about all the people who preordered the original version and don't want a 'rewritten to take account of everything that's appeared since'? They might not WANT a copy of the new, justify everything, version. This is one the reasons that I think the whole thing will be scrapped.

The only thing with that is by keeping it available to purchase it is inviting more orders that will have to be refunded. Sounds more hassle than it's worth to keep pre-orders open if the book is not going ahead.

To be fair though, ebooks and audio books don't take your money until the book is actually released, I think it's only advance orders on paperbacks (possibly bulk orders from bookshops) that will take the money first.So the numbers needn't be huge.

But I would be pissed off if I pre-ordered a book that promised to be a monologue on a solo walk whilst worrying about poor sick husband left behind and worries about the future, and was subsequently sent a book full of wittering justification as to why the 'poor sick husband' is still very much active and the solo walk didn't really have to have been solo at all.

I am surprised that we haven't mentioned the writer Annabel Abbs (or Streets, take your pick) before. The reason that @UpfromSomerset would have seen it picked out in Waterstones is that it is a book of the month. She had previously done a book on solo women walking:

Windswept by Annabel Abbs | Waterstones

What seems to be behind her books/talks now is a project with a health coach. I can't seen anything particularly wrong with it as it just encourages better ageing. However, they do give their writings a scientific basis - and again I can't see that either of them have a science or medical background.

About The Age-Well Project - The Age-Well Project

It was certainly an eye-catching display, @MulberryBrandy , the actual words appearing in the window display that interested me (in relation to TSP saga) were "non-fiction" and of course the book's title, incorporating as it did the words "walking" and "cure"!
Whilst keeping fit by moderate exercise such as walking, jogging etc. is not under scrutiny, there is clearly - in my view - a real danger in attaching the word "cure" to exercise. Curing what, exactly?

Yes, why didn’t he go with her? Why did she bother going alone in the first place when it was discovered that they had reversed the symptoms of CBD in their version of the universe? Surely that means that she failed her role as the loving wife because she went without him using the excuse that she was preparing herself for life without him even though she knew deep down that his symptoms reversed after the SWCP, Iceland and the Scotland to Cornwall walk, so surely they would again? He seems to have been a complete medical marvel. Not only did he reverse the symptoms of CBD (which doctors have said is impossible) he managed to do so by subjecting himself to conditions that are the exact opposite of the type which are recommended. I’ve come to the conclusion that he is Roger Hargreaves’ Mr. Topsy-Turvey or F Scott Fitzgerald’s Benjamin Button. So why didn’t he go? We’re told that the coast to coast walk was another that they’d always wanted to do together. Did Penguin have the expectation that they were going to do it together and that she would write about it? Did he refuse to do it and she then had to present Penguin with the news that he was unfortunately dying and she would go alone? I was going to ask if pre ordered hard copies of books took the cash first. So the answer is that they do. That’s a lot of interest being earned in the meanwhile. If “nothing has changed” there should be no reason not to release the original OWH. Of course everything has changed and we all know it.

edited because original version of this post made the typo “fortunate” instead of “unfortunate”.

The writers’ meagre bank accounts?

But fom the customer's perspective, the numbers are irrelevant. If i buy a book on preorder i expect it to be fulfilled. In this case, a fair few folk would have bought a preorder before the truth came out, the book was subsequently up in the air and has now been pushed back over 2 years away and it is STILL on preorder accepting purchases. That seems plain wrong if there is no intention to publish it. And as you suggest, even if the plan is to significantly alter the content, that would then mean it becomes a different book to the one someone originally bought. I guess consumers can get a refund but it seems odd.

Bottom line, I just don't see what benefit PRH would have to keep presale open, even if numbers are huge, if it simply intends to quietly pull the plug at some point.

Urgh, i just read some blurb about The Walking Cure - the mention of "hope molecules" got me. Personally, it screams "who buys into this nonsense?" (sorry Annabel).

The Walking Cure examines 20 landscapes and the way in which they influence us – psychologically, emotionally, cognitively and biologically. Here, Annabel explores the extraordinary effects of hope molecules (the biochemicals we produce when we move) as well as the (astonishing) way in which air changes according to where we amble.

"An excellent grifter tale" Good to see Our Chloe's work getting wide appreciation: The Salt Path Scandal and Buttermilk Graffiti

Or that she didn't want to risk exposing her agent and her publisher to advance knowledge of new allegations/be the person any new family members with an axe to grind or people who recognised themselves as misrepresented in TSP contacted? I vaguely assumed she'd replaced the agency contact and the PRH publicity person with that random gmail address (which I assumed was her own) to maintain control over who got to see new grime first and be able to cover it up where possible...?

But obviously, we don't know what's going on behind the scenes. Until or unless she has a new book with a firm launch date, neither agent nor publisher has to do anything public-facing. Hard to know if an editor and/or agent are encouraging her on through a new MS, or letting her get on with it and seeing what she comes up with.

Also hard to know what relations between her agent and PRH will be like now. Mutual recrimination for landing them in it, both thinking the other should have made more checks, or rueful comradeship at having the wool pulled over their eyes. Or, I suppose, a sense of shamefacedness at having been the launchpad for an effective literary scam.

Nothing says rigorous science like implying a countryside walk upgrades your atmosphere from standard oxygen to premium artisanal inhale.

In the US article (The Salt Path Doesn't Make Sense Until etc), this reader comment stood out:

"One of the sadder parts of living in a time where the middle class is being vaporized by medical bills, crushing inflation, and IRS-backed bailouts for J6ers and billionaire politicians, is the booming secondary market of "Inspirational" woo-woo stories like this. God, nature, crystals, Ivermectin, whatever you want to call it - it's just poor people getting their pockets picked twice."

Yes, I read that comment and thought about how Raynor Winn painted the doctor as such a gleefully evil person who wasn’t in touch with reality and whose advice she had defiantly rebelled against and won over. It’s often been the case that a second opinion should be sought and nhs patients do have to push hard sometimes to be heard or to receive treatment, so the Raynor Winn sentiment cuts through all that doubt and that time-wasting by simply telling people that these doctors haven’t got a clue in the first place, so don’t bother. Thankfully we now know that Raynor and Moth are fictional and the events in the book which she revelled in describing so scornfully, didn’t actually happen in quite the same way. Sadly, thanks to the lack of care and due diligence performed by agents and publishers, this ridiculous story was thought to be true and the consequences for those whose lives really have been afflicted by CBD have paid double the price. The Walkers have shown no remorse towards them and piggy backing on a charity in order to make themselves look authentic does not count, nor does false hope.

Also though, if they pull OWH from preorder then that is basically PRH acknowledging that this book will never be released. Which, in turn, is an acknowledgement that this entire scam was just that, a scam. If they keep the book up there then they can still pretend that this has all been a big misunderstanding which has affected Sal's mental health so badly that she can't...I dunno, completely rewrite the new book to ignore all allegations and make up entirely new claims and explanations or something. They can pretend that the book is still going to be released at some undefined point in the future. Because as soon as they kill it they have accepted the allegations and this could well cause all the rest of the books to plummet in sales.

And they can't really keep pushing it back 'because it's still being written', because it was, apparently, already written and the only reason for rewriting is because the original version was complete bollocks about everything that has since been discredited.

So they are between a rock and a hard place. PRHs best bet right now would be to say that Sal's mental health is not up to OWHs release, to quietly retire the book and pretend it's for the author's own good.

It has seemed to me, since this whole scandal started, that Penguin have been like the Walkers - they have not stood up to any scrutiny. They never apply any thorough thinking or action - very "that will be enough", the bare minimum.

On their website, under 'Raynor Winn', there are links to articles featuring this author. Two of these are 5 years old. There is one called Extraordinary stories from ordinary people, despite the link and referring to a couple turning to the wilderness as they face financial ruin, they have removed her and her book.

Is there any news about the film being released in America? I have had a look, the Rialto site says it has been released but I can't find anything further. Wondering if anyone saw the BBC piece a few weeks ago about the self styled baby sleep expert Alison Scott -Wright, sadly another PRH author, don't they check anyone's credentials?