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

Just nipping back quickly to apologise to those working in the housing sector in case it came across that I was suggesting such people are jobsworths! Absolutely not my intention and I can only imagine the relentless frustrations and challenges of that role, amongst which being seen as personally responsible for an overloaded, underfunded system must be just one.

@derxa I have a copy you can have, if you like? 😂 Maybe we should start a Salt Path swap club on here?

We can only imagine! Pedestrian however IME compared to the Soay, the Usain Bolts of the sheep world.

Now they could teach the Winn-Walker-Wyn-Thomas pair a thing or two about going on the run.

She describes her own employment history as follows (this is the part of TSP where they are staying over winter in Polly's outbuilding in exchange for renovating it):
And who wants a fifty-year-old woman whose work history for the last twenty years has been self-employment? It didn’t count that I’d been a farmer, plumber, builder, electrician, gardener, decorator, designer, accountant, tree surgeon, and run a holiday let. I had neither a piece of paper or an ex-employer to prove it. I would have to retrain. But even then, who would want to employ a fifty-year-old newly qualified woman when they could have the equivalent twenty-three-year-old?

Plenty of transferrable skills there, Sal, though it seems a bit odd that you haven't mentioned your spell as an employed bookkeeper? 🤔

And actually, although she's clearly trying to sound multi-talented here, I'd guess that many of us could put together a similar list by thinking of famcy titles for all the things we do when bringing up children, looking after a home, looking after pets, having a hobby here and there -- AND holding down an honest job!

Absolutely.

They bought the house in France in 2007, or rather Timothy did. Why wasn't she on the deeds?

Ros Hemmings said that Sally Walker had told them she "had been made redundant from a hotel in Abersoch" (15 minutes from Pwllheli).

In 2007 Tim was 47 and Sally 45. As she'd been embezzling for years, she may have been around 40 when she began working for Martin Hemmings.

They were listed on 192 at a Pwllheli address between 2002 - 2008 (Tim's parents appear at a different address right up to 2016). But the online search goes back no further than 2002.

Mine went to the RNLI gift shop yesterday. I live on the SWCP so it seemed appropriate that they should benefit. They said that they'd already had a couple of copies of TSP donated, and that's only 2 days after The Observer article was published

Book contracts can include a clause that you will do publicity as required/arranged by the publisher. It might have been that they were contracted to do the publicity and it's then going to be problem to say "no because I don't want to be recognised by people I owe money to/did a runner on". Especially when your USP is being a lovely, wise, nature-healing earth mother type. That may explain why Gillian Anderson found Raynor/Sally "guarded".They were probably just hoping it would all be fine and the film stuff would blow over.

I have a copy you can have, if you like? 😂 Maybe we should start a Salt Path swap club on here?

We can send them en masse to anyone who misbehaves on this thread in future. You have been warned! Behave yourselves or you will be inundated with millions of unwanted The Salt Path books, then we'll start sending you the other 3 books. If all that fails you'll be made to listen to Raynor/Sally reading TSP audiobook. Or be sent for a very long walk with only flimsy equipment, dry noodles and tourist fudge. That'll teach ya.

A couple of clicks and a small credit paid on a different website has given me a possible current address for Tim's father (which I'm obviously not sharing here,and I'm not paying the credits to double check either!)

But it would take a journo no time to do the same -so if that isn't Timothy's father, then I pity the poor person who's probably having to fend off people on the doorstep wanting the lowdown.

It's not all that difficult at all to track people down, unless they take steps to not be trackable.

I’m guessing it will be

due to his unexplained health issues moth wasn’t bringing in any money. We started getting into debt and I foolishly started borrowing from my employer (without telling them) fully intending to pay it back. Things spiralled out of control and a distant relative took advantage with a meanie loan which we unfortunately couldn’t pay back and they wouldn’t give us more time so we lost the house.

I can’t wait to see who interviews then when they decide to break cover. I think they will go for a newspaper/magazine rather than tv

Her light-fingered past does go some way towards explaining why she keeps finding reasons not to apply for jobs, though -- at first, just after they lose their house, she says she doesn't want to lose what remaining time she has with Moth being comparatively well by going out to work.

Then, by the time they're overwintering in between their two stints on the path and even frail Moth is working on the building they live in, she has to find another reason, ie she's been self-employed for twenty years, with no work record and no references, so no one will hire her, even if she retrains etc etc.

When in fact it's more like 'I have to paper over gaps in my CV and my inability to seek a reference not only from my past employer but from anyone who knows the story, or indeed who knows anyone else to whom I owe money'.

Tim's parents are both dead.

I agree it will be in print not least because even before the scandal broke she came across on screen as shifty & not very likeable.

For the love of God, if you want to discuss disability and disability benefits etc. start another thread.

I am enjoying this one as it is a nice escape from the bucket loads of shit that arpoured d on disabled people elsewhere on MN.

Eta: sorry everyone else, I realise now pp have said the same thing. I hadn't completely caught up!

For the love of God, do I need to start another thread AIBU to expect people to read all the posts before responding?😀

ETA that I replied before your ETA😀

SW/RW in an interview from May: "The producer and director have created something that's sparse in dialogue. It's huge in emotion and it urges anyone to focus on the now.", she said.

I wonder if it was sparse in dialogue as no one couldn't fathom how the couple interacted with each other, or guage anything about how their relationship played out in reality?

Others have mentioned Moth isn't given much character in the book, which as an aside seems odd really, as he comes across as something of a personality from what Jason Issacs relayed, and with his unique hairstyle.

I read TSP a couple of years ago now but remember it was very much her, or rather RW's, internal monologue and observations.

Apparently such books can increase in value once they stop printing new copies, due to the notoriety.

Projection.

To be fair to @PrettyDamnCosmic s/he isn't the only guilty party (guilty path-y?) across this thread and the first two. S/he has taken the point and said TSP will be her/his focus from now on.

To be clear, posts questioning disabled people or their benefits are not in the spirit of the thread and are unwelcome and unhelpful. I would also urge caution when commenting on the health or disability of Moth/Tim. It is worth remembering that even The Observer team of investigative journalists has stopped short of saying that he is a fraud, which suggests to me that there is not yet cast-iron proof either way.

Let us all draw a line under this now please and prevent the threads from being further derailed or posts deleted. We don't want to stray onto the wrong path now, do we, you salty lot.

At the end of the Country Living article, they've added this:

Please note, this story was published before a report by the Observer on 5th July 2025, which states that the truth of some Raynor Winn’s story had been misrepresented. In response, Winn has called the report ‘highly misleading’ and said that her team is taking legal advice and won't be making any further comment at this time.

😂😂

Awful. And he is on it as well. Calling her Ray when she known as Sally prior to vanishing:

the pair still cling to one another most of all. “I've got a Ray, and every day she gets me up in the morning. And she'll remind me that today is worth living for,” he says, grin spreading across his face.

It is so strange. I mean it's clear now why not just the author but her spouse adopted a pen name (which must be unusual in the extreme) but I wonder if they "officially" rid themselves of their old identities before contact with agents, PRH, etc.