Thread 5: 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 ...

Second article in the Observer
https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/the-salt-path-whats-in-the-book-and-what-the-observer-has-found

Third item in the Observer
https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/the-salt-path-the-truth-behind-the-blockbuster-book-video

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Raynor Winn/Sally Walker's statement Raynor Winn

The paragraphs relating to surfing just as Moth should have been getting a terminal diagnosis:

“According to the book, the couple's 'Salt Path' trek began in August 2013 when they set off from Minehead in Somerset equipped with a tent bought on eBay, two sleeping bags, £115 in cash and a bank card to draw out £48 a week in tax credits.
At this point, the couple's son, now 36, was living in Newquay in Cornwall. Curiously, on July 23, 2013, just a couple of weeks before the Walkers set off, he posted on Facebook: 'Just been teaching my Dad how to surf today has been a good day.'
In the book's description of their preparations, Raynor makes no mention of a visit to Newquay.”

If the family decide to go all in I would imagine there will be documentation about the loan and none about an investment

Interesting in the mail acquaintances say they are the type of people that will believe something if they say it enough times so I imagine they believe they’ve done nothing wrong.

also sounds like the embezzled funds were spent on living a lifestyle beyond their means

she was a stupid thief though. She got caught because she stole the £600 he needed - she should have known he needed it and should have been aware of the bank balance

Just skipped a bunch of pages on this thread as it’s too fast-moving and I went off line last night 😆

What more might even come out though? It seems as if the major issues have been revealed.

The latest Mail story (the "Were they ever really homeless one") is a really good piece of investigation. The story is falling apart now - I don't know how they managed to see the son's old Facebook posts (presumably screenshot and shared by a Facebook friend) but the fact that the son was living in Cornwall at the time they were walking the salt path, and that they'd visited him just before they supposedly started the walk, and then visited again when they were, according to the book, just reaching the St Ives part of their walk, calls the whole story into question.

And of course Tim/Moth's parents were living in Pwllheli. It's not as if they were short of people they could call on if they wanted a roof over their head or even a few hundred quid to pay for campsite accommodation while they were doing the walk.

Theres some nuggets in the latest Daily Mail and Times articles aren't there! Thank you to those who shared.

Bits that jumped out at me

• the surfing!! I mean that wildly counters the idea he was really unwell then.
• the fact it mentions she was a book keeper at the hotel in Abersoch when she lost her job. I wonder whether there is a further story there....
• the fact they used a leading London law firm to organise the settlement with Mr Hemmings. These aren't naive people who don't know how to get good advice on legal /business matters

You’re right he’s a photographer from Leeds who may have just happened to be in the area. If the Mail had sent a full team, I would have thought you’d expect to see more photos from France maybe of the mayor or a neighbour, for example. That said, the Mail probably wants to keep costs down. An opportunistic stringer already nearby, with a drone, gets the shot it’s cheaper and gets the job done. Plus the France property isn't as big a smoking gun as first thought.

A 2019 letter, also from a consultant neurologist, stated that his symptoms had led them to 'formulate' his condition as an 'atypical' form of CBD.

It's a shame the DM don't also mention the consultant was, by then, thinking it could be something else.

Interesting in the mail acquaintances say they are the type of people that will believe something if they say it enough times so I imagine they believe they’ve done nothing wrong.

Yeah this is what my ex was like and it really messes with your head. It took a lot of time away from him before I realised how many lies I had fallen for. In fact it took my son standing up really robustly to his dad's version of events about something to make me realise how manipulative his dad was. So I expect there are a lot of people Raymoth have had dealings with who are revisiting things now

Well they couldn’t live with his dad because they needed to hide from the villagers!!

it puts a whole new light on it that they were effectively on the run to hide and i would imagine when it’s looked into a bit more it will turn out that they didn’t do a lot of the walk as they say

"Teaching him to surf" might have been just showing him how to lie on a surf board and pushing him into a wave. I don't think it implies anything that hasn't already been suggested by doing the walk in the first place.

Honestly, I wouldn’t find that in any way problematic in itself. Memoirs are selective and will routinely rearrange timescales for dramatic effect, to remove extraneous events, leave out people who don’t want to be in your book, or because an editor has said ‘This interrupts the flow’. And people in real life do completely illogical things that you’d look askance at in a fictional character, like going to be taught to surf by your adult child while you’re about to have your home repossessed.

The TSP is an extreme example, obviously, which is why it’s causing so much speculation and outrage, but if we leave out for a minute the embezzlement and the problematics of the timeline and severity of Moth’s diagnosis, I don’t think that there’s anything particularly unusual in a memoir in omitting a visit to their son, who may have asked not to be included — he seems to only feature in TSP in a single conversation, in my memory?

Quite apart from the specifics of this case, I think people are being quite naive about the extent to which any memoir is a literal ‘warts-and-all’ slice of life.

So difficult to keep up - where did this information come from?

Wow, I’m not a DM fan by any stretch of the imagination but my god that’s a good article

That would all be true, if it weren't for the fact that she sells walking as some kind of magical reversal remedy for Moth, which really doesn't wash if he was well enough to surf two weeks before the walk began

in TSP SW claims that after they left their house in Wales they drove down south, spent a day in Glastonbury and then crashed out for two weeks at a friend's (Jan) house near Yeovil.

"Instead of two days it took nearly two weeks of sleeping on Jan's floor before Moth's back pain and stiffness from the Glastonbury angels had worn off"

SW claims they were then driven to Taunton by Jan where they took a bus to Minehead and started the walk. Other posters have suggested the start date was 6 Aug.

This timeline doesn't exactly seem to fit with their son's July 23 FB post that TW was surfing in Newquay!!!!

It's in a story in the Mail - it's behind a paywall, so here's the archive link:

https://archive.ph/EBFnx

I agree - a memoir that is an exact recounting of events is probably self published and only politely read by family.

Moth completed it in 2023. His results are on the results page. The son did it in 2024

the relative who gave the loan is Anthony Browne who died in 2012.

This is incorrect unless that poster has done their own searches but I suspect it's a typo. I just wanted to point it out before anyone constructs another timeline and it gets embedded. The DM says he died in 2016.

18 years into CBD? That is ridiculous!

What I don't understand is anyone with such a shady background writing a book and saying everything in it is true. You're bound to get caught out. I cannot imagine the anxiety of that! Imagine dealing with this public fallout now at their ages. It's awful. It must be so stressful to the system. I wouldn't be surprised if they do become seriously ill as a result.

Why not instead use your life experiences as the basis for a fictional story? Add some more dramatic elements, add characters. Then publish it as non-fiction? Makes far more sense. Sally can obviously write. I don't understand why they insisted on writing this as a supposed memoir.

What a mess. I can't help but feel a certain pity.

There are lots of Chapels in Polruan. So probably not this one. The person you are replying to has clearly just googled chapel n Polruan and this has come up

There is also a massive difference between what a holiday let can achieve in rent and what a normal rental can get.

In the book Raynor Winn says the flat had tenants moving out so it was clearly already a long term rental.

The sons facebook posts were visible until a couple of days ago. I saw them earlier in the week and posted here about some of the inconsistencies including the surfing in July and the inconsistent 17th Sept date of finishing...just didn't feel it appropriate to say where I got the info. I'd also seen the post about him getting a holiday to Rome from his parents. I believe that gift may have been delayed because his posts showed he went to Rome in 2018 and it was his first time - a dream holiday.

His account is now disabled or deleted, understandably.

You think?

Back in 2007 it would have looked very different. According to a local who posted on the first DM article they went out there with the intention of doing it up and living there. Tim's father had talked about that to people.

I think it's possible that them not returning may have been linked to the embezzlement. They went out when they bought it but it was Easter 2008 when Martin Hemmings realised Sally Walker was stealing, so depending on when they bought it, they may not have had another chance to go there.

They borrowed money from his uncle in 2008, and their family would then have known she was a criminal. That may be why they never went back.

If Tim's brother owns the pigeon loft, I wonder if the two families bought the plots as a joint venture?

They could have taken a caravan there when they lost their house, just as they'd done before.

I think the reason they never sold it is because they owe taxes as the local mayor says. There may be other reasons.

I don’t think that there’s anything particularly unusual in a memoir in omitting a visit to their son, who may have asked not to be included — he seems to only feature in TSP in a single conversation, in my memory?

There are two dodgy bits to it, in my view. One is that Tim was well enough to be learning to surf at a time when he was receiving a terminal diagnosis of a serious neurological disorder. The other is that they clearly got on well with their son, and any sane couple in that situation would have said something like "Son, we're about to be made homeless and we won't have any money. Could we kip on your floor/borrow a couple of hundred quid?" I mean, you just would, wouldn't you? Even if you were reluctant to impose on your children, you would still do that.

And then there's the business about meeting the son in the middle of the holiday. His post reads "'3.5 hours to Bristol 30 mins break then floor it back fun times . . . dropped my parents off heading back now", that suggests they met in Bristol, so how did they get there? Did their son pick them up in St Ives and drive them to Bristol and then drive them back again? That doesn't make a whole lot of sense if he was living in Newquay and they were in St Ives.