Thread 3: 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 The real Salt Path: how a blockbuster book and film were ...

Thread One ^www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5368194-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?^

Thread 2 Thread 2. To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film? | Mumsnet

I think that even if the Observer is finished after the initial "J'accuse", this isn't over. There were more questions raised than answers really, there has been much public interest and there will be other media willing to pick up the baton.

Noone in the NHS is (absolutely properly) going to disclose his medical records but that still leaves interviews with anyone they've pissed off and now feels emboldened to come forward, a deeper dive into the French connection and what they owe there, loads of things potentially.

PRH and people associated with the film haven't said anything but I can't imagine it's going to go away and Raynor/Sally can do a lovely unquestioned round of publicity for the new book in the auumn.

The Observer only comes out on Sunday, so if there was more, we wouldn’t find out until the weekend anyway

To apply for disability benefits he would have needed evidence of disability ........ which it now seems he may not have.

Interestingly in the R4 interview the journalist said that the original tip-off she received was from someone who doubted Moth's illness, not about the theft from the employer or the fact that Raynor and Moth weren't their real names.

So she must have just gone and investigated the story about losing the house with a hunch that if they were lying about the illness they were probably lying about that too.

I doubt he would have got it if he tried.

From what I’ve read it sounds like he does have a health condition but it’s not necessarily CBD - I think they need to come clean because if he is ill in any way then the current belief that it’s all a lie is worse for him

will be interesting to see if the French come after them now!!

Some random thoughts...

I'm a little surprised by those posters who seem to think that The Salt Path would be Richard Osman's cup of tea because he wrote the Thursday Murder Club books. I like the Thursday Murder Club, but The Salt Path is definitely not my thing.

Regarding what is acceptable in a book like this, I know that there are always at least three truths - your truth, my truth and the truth. I don't expect a book like this to be 100% objectively truthful. The writer will embellish incidents to make them more interesting. When they record conversations, it is unlikely that they have recalled the exact words used. They may miss out events that put them in a bad light, or give a version of those events they do record that puts them in a better light than is justified. But I do expect a basic level of truth. I expect your truth, not something where important elements of your story are a complete fiction designed to manipulate the reader into feeling sympathetic for you.

As for how they thought they would get away with it, I am reminded of my second wife. She always claimed she hated liars and would never lie, but she was the biggest liar I have ever known. Often her lies were obvious. For example, for much of our marriage, she insisted that she had never wanted to marry me and that we had got engaged when I unexpectedly produced a ring and popped it on her finger (the reality is that we had chosen the engagement ring together that afternoon and agreed that we would get engaged during our evening meal so, at an appropriate point, I popped the question and she said yes). She could never answer the question as to why she didn't simply say no if her version was correct. Occasionally her version would revert to what actually happened, so she clearly knew the truth, but most of the time she would insist that the lie was correct and clearly expected everyone to believe her. The idea that anyone might question her version of events didn't seem to cross her mind. I could give many more examples. I wonder if SW is the same.

Can we not police disability benefits please, yes even for Moth - for all the reasons that have been given several times over on these threads.

It's bloody hard to qualify for PIP.

On the diagnosis of CBD, I noticed this (NHS site)

It can be difficult to diagnose corticobasal degeneration (CBD), as there's no single test for it, and the condition can have similar symptoms to a number of others.
A diagnosis of CBD will be based on the pattern of your symptoms. Your doctor will also try to rule out conditions that can cause similar symptoms

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/corticobasal-degeneration/diagnosis/

I belong to two, one is like your husband's, we score the book, we each get to choose a book to read and we discuss it over a glass of wine or a cuppa, it's quite structured.

The other one is much more social and we have been friends for years, rarely discuss the book 😂

The Daily Mash are on it now. Sorry if this has been posted before 😂😂😂
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1BgWfskCja/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Let's call Rainbolt. He can find any location anywhere. We just send him the images of the falling down house in France from the Observer video and he'll find it!

https://youtube.com/shorts/Zb0r5FOHxV4?si=Z5FIcaTrjxGz3UB5

He's great!

Much less laborious than working out whatever, "One and a half hours from Bordeaux." might mean.

I'm warming to this. It's like, "Don't F* With Cats" all over again.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/08/the-salt-path-memoir-raynor-winn

There's a video on Gillian Anderson's Insta (gilliana). It's the first day of rehersals and she's outdoors with a backpack. Part of a post from 3 June.

She's panting away, saying "fuck me...how do people do it?"

Good question!

Haha I love that! So true!!

Or if we don't call on Rainbolt, does anybody recognise this?

https://photos.app.goo.gl/VHdoGiem2xVWshnA6

Oh, so she possibly went to investigate one story and uncovered a totally different one.

Wonder who tipped her off about Moth and what their motive was, possibly someone else that lost money to them!

The thing I keep coming back to in my mind is the false victimhood, when Ros Hemmings and her husband had to deal with someone they trusted betraying them so badly. Yes, they got their money back (thankfully) but it doesn't make what to them happened OK and only when it was uncovered did RW/Sally do anything about it, with the prospect of court.

The Winn/Walkers were very unwise to spin this particular victim narrative. They might have got away with "we were heavily mortgaged, lots of debt, Moth/Tim ill, couldn't hang on to the farm" (I'm totally sure many small farmers would understand that) Much harder to disprove.

Of course there is still all the medical stuff on top.

Thank you for sharing! It's made me laugh a lot. Especially

It’s nice to believe a seaside yomp can make terminal illnesses and self-orchestrated poverty magically go away. But it logically means the anti-vaxxer guy from Coast is a God of Health and right about everything which he can’t be, as he regularly appears on GB News. The ravages of corticobasal degeneration are not vulnerable to hiking

Or doctors who realised big alarm bells had to be ringing by now.

If he did have the CBD surely they would have provided that info to the PPA charity (who said there were 'questions unanswered')?

@Uricon2 The thing I keep coming back to in my mind is the false victimhood, when Ros Hemmings and her husband had to deal with someone they trusted betraying them so badly.

This is really true
I'm slightly in awe at how Ros Hemmings has handled herself over all these years. If I had been fleeced of a large amount of money by someone I trusted and then had to watch that person build a successful literary career on the back of my pain and their lies then I'd probably be burning my local branch of Waterstones down in retaliation.

Oh this is the one that Angela Harding (the Salt Path cover artist) shared on her insta stories yesterday

Yeah. The list of potential tipsters is pretty broad.

Well, people don't believe you. We don't know the exact nature of this, "local business."

Could people have thought, "Ros and Martin, lovely people but they don't exactly have their finger on the pulse. Good job Sally was there to sort out their chaotic system."