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?

Perhaps SW will one day claim that that she wrote three books and gave hundreds of interviews while in an altered state of frenzy induced by vapours emerging from a cleft in the rock along the SWCP, and that her utterances have been widely misinterpreted.😀🙄

Wasn’t the Pythia supposed to deliver her prophecies (according to some accounts) in dactylic hexameter? We’re back to SW as poet, whispering guff about the sea and the wind while doing her little dance. Ew.

I suspect there was a blurry grey zone within which the original TSP manuscript fell initially - I think it may have been conceived as a natural second endeavour to HNTDDD, which was fiction, based on fact.

And I think TSP falls within this bracket too - but perhaps agents & editorial teams at PRH were insistent about schooling / shepherding / shaping it to fit more neatly (and entirely) within the nature writing / real-life - non-fiction (ie 98 per cent true) genre - as maybe books that straddle genres are difficult to sell / manage?

Perhaps SW / TW went along with this re-shaping of the original MS as if it were 98 per cent true (with the 2 per cent not true allowing for the standard changes that non-fiction goes through, to accommodate changes that need to be made to protect privacy, or to adjust pacing / arcs to make for an easier read, but without materially altering the essence of the story)..

It is maybe the case that TSP was fiction inspired by a true story - but maybe the kernel of truth is only 50 per cent (or less?) of the final book. Perhaps it wasn’t clear to the publishers that the original manuscript had strayed largely into fiction, as SW gave a warranty that it was materially true.

If the family (the children) believed that it was okay to firmly straddle fact and fiction (as had been done before with HNTDDD, with no consequences), and that there would be no consequences for doing so, then I think they could maybe be forgiven for doing so. There have been gradual revelations over the last year about how far the books have strayed from the truth, and details of SW / TW’s character and private conduct have also been brought out in the media - maybe the children were not fully aware of all of these dealings / things?

Obviously they are now aware of all of this. I am not sure what I would do in this situation, if I was one of the children…

It could be that a Gweek Pilgrimage is planned, with our salty pair selling £49.99 bottles of healing water claimed to have been used to wash their skulduggerous feet and the few remaining adoring paying public kept firmly outside the gates.

In an Emperor's New Clothes moment, a certain charabanc could roll up, with polite but firm calls of 'he's not ill', 'they didn't walk it' and 'that water is straight from the tap'.

Well, PSPA said, from what I remember, in its statement about cutting ties with the Walkers, that it wanted to reassure donors that all moneys from them had been raised by reputable platforms and the sums had been received in full by PSPA. So I suppose, however duped some people might feel, at least whatever they gave will have gone towards funding research etc into a horrible condition.

Even if they thought they were lauding an inspirational, twinkly-eyed silver fox, struck down in his prime by an incurable illness, rather than a workshy scam artist happy to live the high life on his lightfingered wife’s thefts, with a long history of faking illness.

Their children will have been well aware of much of what The Observer uncovered. I mean, they were living at Pen y Maes when SW was arrested for embezzlement and went on the run after skipping bail, they were young adults at the time of the repossession of their home, and they stayed with their parents at Anne’s farm during the period the Walkers were supposed to have been homeless and walking the SWCP. Their son was teaching TW to surf at a time when he was supposed to have been too ill to work or stand up with a full rucksack, and gave them a lift to Bristol at a point when they were supposedly living on noodles in a tent on the SWCP.

Even if we assume they were kept in the dark about SW’s thefts from family, do we actually think the Walker parents pretended to their own children that their father had a terminal condition?

Even if we assume they were kept in the dark about SW’s thefts from family, do we actually think the Walker parents pretended to their own children that their father had a terminal condition?
This is exactly what I’ve been mulling over since yesterday @NervesofSteel . Of course this couple have a track record of being untrustworthy on a criminal scale. I think they must have gaslit their own children through all the earlier offences to keep them under control. Ironically I know some parents who are going through significant illness and rather than worry their children, they have tried to keep upbeat, hide the severity of it, keep the treatments quiet until such day as it can’t be denied any longer. They do it as a kind of sacrifice, they simply don’t want to upset their children and want to keep everything as normal. There’s always a chance that Tim was seen in that light, that they told the children he was dying of CBD but don’t worry because he’s all right, doctors don’t know anything do they? So yes, I do believe that they pretended to their own children and still are. It’s also occurred to me that Sal took inspiration and gathered material while being amongst her son and daughter’s surfing friends while they hung out on the beach and turned it into the camping/toking chapter where Moth tells the community that he’s dying and everyone is full of awe and respect for the dude.

It's entirely possible, I suppose. Though presumably by now they will have worked it out for themselves, having had every chance to see him visibly well and thriving for the best part of two decades after apparently developing the condition. It's a pretty dark thing to think of, parents deceiving their own children to the point where they believe their father is dying. One can only imagine the therapists' bills...

Yes, incredibly dark. And it now occurs to me that in TSP one of RW's excuses to avoid work was because she wanted to spend every last minute with Moth before CBD took hold if him. But to do so by taking him off on the SWCP deprived their kids of time with him. That alone doesn't add up. On one hand she is so gaspily distraught at the little time left, yet she takes him all for herself, apparently with Tristan's indifferent approval and Alice's half hearted concern which is abated by the promise of daily phone calls (a promise which quickly gets broken due to phone battery etc).

Just to add to the plausibility of this speculation - recall that there is no charity specifically dedicated to CBS/D, hence why the PSPA support those families facing it as PSP is the next closest disease. Basically, there is a charity gap that could be filled for CBD.

To be quite straightforward - Tristan and Alice know that the books are not what they claim. Alice and her boyfriend live with them so they are going to know how Tim is - Sally claims he could not join her On Winter Hill. They were already in their mid to late 20s when TSP was published.

They know - when their grandmother died, when their parents went to Iceland, when Tristan moved all their stuff to his grandmother's house, when their father started his course.

They know that there is a pattern of behaviour with their parents - the cousins that used to stay (and they with them in France), the Hemmings that they spent Christmas with, Tim's parents had to live at their property.

No! I was thinking that the whole family (including SW & TW, and adult children) originally understood the manuscript to be along the same lines as HNTDDD ie fiction & fact mixed together to make a ‘good story’; so my hypothesis was that this fiction-with-a-sprinkling-of-fact manuscript ended up sitting entirely within the non-fiction travel memoir genre, perhaps due to editorial decisions & SW not realising that it does actually matter if you pretend something is entirely true. And that the family didn’t really twig (until the Observer exposé) that it would matter that much if it was in slightly the wrong category (ie fiction loosely inspired by some real-life events vs. non-fiction ‘completely true’) as it might sell some copies but not become a bestseller. I’m probably wrong - but I can see how it could happen… (and I think it would make a fascinating drama series on TV!!)

I think the author and the publisher knew that things do matter, quite a lot. I think they were very knowing - best put in this article by Our Chloe:

The Salt Path: what did the publisher actually know?

I have to admit I have been lurking on this thread for a very long time.

Thank you to @DisappointedReader for creating this thread, and congratulations to all of you who have contributed to this these discussions exposing the Walkers complete dishonesty.

I will be honest I am not a Mum, or a Grandparent. Sadly my DW and I never had children. However, all my life I have enjoyed reading both fiction and non-fiction, I would like to consider myself to be a voracious reader. And for a book group I belong to I read TSP, and stupidly believed it was true! Also, we went to see TSP film, I now kick myself for wasting two Picturehouse free tickets on that! And then after seeing the film The Observer expose was published, if I'd waited a week I could have save the tickets!! I have listen to both OC's podcast and the BBC's podcast with increasing disgust at the actions of SW and TW (I refuse to use their false names) I wish I had some feeling of vindication but I fell for the story of homelessness and chronic illness - all utterly bogus.

On reading the recent DM article it feels like The Walkers are dividing up 'the spoils' amongst themselves. It is annoying that is is estimated to be that much!
I think the Walkers have got what they wanted all their lives, enough money that they do not have to dirty their hands with the sort of work we mere mortals have to do.

There are many other thoughts I have, but I will not bombard you with them now. If I am welcome aboard the charabanc I look forward to joining the discourse.

Thanks for posting that article :) From reading it, it seems that the publishers may have packaged it as non-fiction (despite knowing it wasn’t) as the view was taken that nobody cares so long as it was a ‘good story’ and sells well - and that if ever there was a bit of questioning, then they have their lengthy legal disclaimer….and, “of course it’s not our fault, because the author told us it was true and of course we believed her” type of thing, as their ‘get out of jail free’ card.

Despicable - and disrespectful towards their readership, frankly. But I know this has all been covered in the many threads before. I think the key though is that no-one imagined there would be this much (explosive) scrutiny!

I would so love to see a 3-part TV drama about this though…!! (Perhaps one ‘loosely inspired by a true story’!!)

Thank you for sharing. You are already on board ❤

SW can't possibly have not known the consequences of presenting TSP as memoir rather than fiction. She queried a specialist non-fiction agency that mostly represents authors of self-help books, books about health and wellbeing, and memoirs written by activists or people to whom something unusual or unfortunate has happened. (GMC does latterly also publish some novels, but by their existing non-fiction authors who have pivoted.) And when you query agents, the first thing you specify, in the first line of your letter, is your genre. You can't pitch a book, and your agent can't sell a book to an editor, unless you know, first and foremost what genre it's in.

It's hard to know what PRH's due diligence may have consisted of, but it's possible SW showed the legal dept the same consultant letters she published on her website along with her statement, and something that showed court proceedings about the house repossession, and despite the dates not fitting, that was enough, with the standard memoir contract that the author stands over the substantial truth of the book and the medical disclaimer.

It's standard for a memoirist to be required to send the MS, or relevant parts, to anyone who appears in it under their own name for an advance read to stave off the possibility of libel, but 'Cooper' the villain was imaginary, and, if the events of TSP were true, very few people other than the Walkers could have testified to what happened, as it's pretty much a bool of two people and a lot of passersby.

But everyone involved clearly lost their mind by the time of writing of TWS and LL.

Welcome @MrKippling !

The thing that cannot be forgiven, even if we are forced to swallow the faux homelessness and the faked reason for it, can anyone really forgive the fake medical diagnosis and subsequent miracle recovery?
Good points and observations made upthread about the continued lack of medical interest in this marvellous human being named Tim Walker. I know we all know now but it’s still good to keep putting it out there as a huge red flag. Everyone knows there’s a huge difference between taking some facts and creating dialogue that’s a bit juicier for the reader and making up fairy tales and hailing yourselves as saints. Nobody said oooh let’s give Tim an incurable disease that he manages to overcome, except the Walkers themselves.

Thank you @MrKippling and a warm welcome aboard to you as pps have said, especially if you are bringing cakes.

Great points. To add re: PRH due diligence, a cursory look at those supporting docs (if that happened) would likely be sufficient as their mere existence would hold a lot of weight to overcome the doubts presented in TSP....heck they have been enough for superfans against the tide of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. And it would have been a big leap to question the documents themselves by PRH as surely they must have thought "well these must be legit because who in their right mind would provide these and be brazen enough willing to publish a tissue of lies." Turns out the answer to that is "Sally Walker, that's who."

Ooh yes please!

I just came back to add that the very real business, the cafe that Walker portrayed in a dreadful way, suffered financially and for no reason. Why the need to invent things like that when the story was surely enough by itself? Again, I don’t think anybody professional steered her in that direction.

It’s incredible really. There’s a lot to be said for emotional blackmail.

I think the Walkers had their own tawdry tale - as made into the novel HNTDDD. While staying with relatives they went off on holiday to where their son was in Cornwall. They did this a few times - as Anne, the niece said. The Walkers met the Australian couple in 2015 and nicked and tacked this story on to theirs. Incredible that this worked.

Salt Path author gave false details as ‘it all seemed too complicated’

I was wondering why I had a sudden yen for an Iced Fancy.😀

I can’t seem to make the comments under that article work. There are two and I’d love to know what they say!

Edited to add: thank you for posting. Sal has an “oops sorry” answer for everything. She reinvented the Aussie couple into a pair that the reader is supposed to think are a bit lightweight. The cheek of it, coming from her. She’s jealous of everyone I think.

Welcome aboard @MrKippling :) @DisappointedReader has done a splendid job of keeping the charabanc running and making sure we are well stocked with fudge and cider.