To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film?

[DisappointedReader]

The real Salt Path: how the couple behind a bestseller le...

I read Raynor Winn's book The Salt Path and her other two books. I was looking forward to seeing the film at some point and to reading her next book. I felt sorry to read about the challenges the couple had faced, especially with regard to losing their family home and with Moth's health. Now, having read the article in today's Observer, I feel a bit stunned and am not sure what to think.

The FreeBMD and the GRO indexes are slightly different. Although the GRO one is more up to date, it has mistakes that don't appear in FreeBMD and vice versa.

So it's best to use both if you can.

On the GRO website you can't search for births from 1935-1983, and you can't search for any marriages either.

How many names do two people need? So far we've got:

Raynor and Moth
Sally and Tim
Sally and Ray.

Wonder how people know who to address their Christmas cards to 🤔.

It's easy to go from shock & disappointment to "it must all be a lie" but I think it's unlikely that it's all false.

Personally don't have a problem if they used the bus at times when walking, or got lifts. It's not as if it was a sponsored challenge that relied upon them completing the whole thing.

Raynor's alleged crimes seem pretty undisputable and its easy to judge their whole characters, but we don't have the full picture and it's possible that having hit rock bottom they rebuilt their lives without ongoing deceit.

I don't care if they got chauffered round Britain in a limo but I do have an issue with bankruptcy being due to crime rather than misfortune, potential untruths about a terminal illness and duping the lovely Jason Isaacs.

This whole thing hinges on his diagnosis. If that was a lie I think it’s over

the fraud is bad but she can sob story her way out of it and talk about what a changed character she is blah blah blah and there are enough invested in her to go with it

I mean , they continued to steal on their way round the coast path, so I don't think it there is any sign of a major change in character.

If they are promoting a non fiction book and film which contain lies to hide their criminal behaviour that IS ongoing deceit.

So I've tried looking for them in the usual places and can find no marriage of a Timothy Walker to a Sally.

She says she grew up on a Staffordshire farm (true or not, who knows), and there are a lot of Sallys born in 1962 in Staffordshire. Is Sally her 'real' name though or a pet name, and she was called something else, like Sarah, maybe?

There's one Timothy R Walker born in 1960, in Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire. He would fit if indeed Tim/Moth has always been called Walker.

There's one marriage of a Timothy R Walker between 1976 and 1998 and that's to a Kathryn P Showell in Walsall. But I can't find a birth for her.

sorry, I meant old school microfiche, some offices still have them in that format the gro indexes are a transcription on freebsd done by volunteers and they don't go past about 1995/98

She allegedly is ‘The daughter of a tenant farmer in Melton Mowbray, Raynor grew up in remote isolation, a self-sufficient child, more used to talking to her dog or reading books than socialising.’ Does that help finding a birth certificate for her?

I irrationally hate them, because my dream has always been to walk the south west coastal path one day, and after this book got famous every Tom, Dick and Harry will be doing it and it will become a massive cliche!
So hopefully now they’ve been busted it will become a deeply unfashionable thing to do 🤣
PS, the book that inspired me to do it many years ago was a comedy book, ‘500 Mile Walkies’ by Mark Wallington - which is hilarious and well worth a read!

Slight tangent, but speaking of their past, there was one bit in the film that I found particularly moving, when Raynor tells Moth he was the first person who ever told her he loved her.

That made me wonder if she’d had a difficult upbringing and family life, and I felt so happy for them both that they seemed very in love and that they clearly cared for each other.

I am curious about what her early life was like, but I know that’s nothing to do with me, so don’t want to go around prying. I doubt I’d find anything anyway.

I wouldn't trust any man who changed his first name to Moth.

I can't believe that their publisher did no due diligence or any rudimentary fact checking. The Observer easily found that they owned a property in France.

He's probably lied about his illness too.

That sounds like it came straight out of an Enid Blyton novel. All that's missing is the lashings of ginger beer.

yes her maiden name was Winn and her mothers maiden name was ray nor

Bingo!!

1962 - Sally A Winn - Melton Mowbray - mother's maiden surname Raynor

If you read the article experts cast doubt on his longevity -it’s a terminal diagnosis -have other people with this illness been given false hope?

Siblings?

Well done!! 👏 👏

In fairness, though, anybody can pick the name of a random when they're seeking to obscure their identity.

They married in Bridlington in 1987.

I couldn't find it before because on FreeBMD it's down as:

Sally L Walker m. Timothy M Winn

Partly some sort of error I imagine, but interesting the different middle initials

Is his name Ronald? did someone say that up thread

if so its possible their surname is Acton

I think his middle name is Ronald and his first name is Timothy.

On the French property document shown in the Observer article the name is 'Timothy Ronald Walker'.

1960 - Timothy R Walker, Burton-upon-Trent, mother's m. surname Browne
1960 - Timothy R Walker, Stockport, mother's maiden surname Hallworth

1962 - Sally A Winn - Melton Mowbray - mother's maiden surname Raynor

1987 - Sally L Walker m. Timothy M Winn - Bridlington

Just putting them all together. Don't know which of the Timothy births he is.