Thread 6: 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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Thread 5 Thread 5: To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film? | Mumsnet

Raynor Winn/Sally Walker's statement Raynor Winn

NB Please be careful when it comes to naming or implicating people who aren't in the public eye or have no connection to the story, especially where details are unclear or still emerging i.e. DON'T DO IT.

Keep on the path. No saltiness. Thank you.

New posters welcome. It would be helpful to read at least the three Observer articles before posting.

If you stop the vid at 1.18 you can see a photo of the Vango tent they camped in. On the first page of TSP SW describes Moth carrying the tent above his head. I'm sorry, but looking at that tent, that is completely impossible. Pure fiction.

People define class in different ways, but the description of the people involved in the publishing company is very, very middle class.

Property investment is middle class.

Could you argue it was precisely their desire to be middle class that was their undoing? Spent above their means to create the middle class farm for eg

so to list their lies the impacts are

1. lying about homelessness and claiming to be a spokesperson for the homeless
2. lying about the neurological condition and the many impacts already discussed
3. lying in the book and thus causing a lot of distrust in the publishing industry
4. all the theft and grifting originally, when they were on the walk and messing up Bills cider farm

This is how the Captain Tom fiasco took hold as some people needed/wanted something positive to believe in during a torrid time and it spiralled. That involved a bloody walk too and a spa block.

Unfortunately there will always be people on the grift looking for an audience to give hope too. So long as they don't look too closely at the storyline.

Re. "Could you argue it was precisely their desire to be middle class that was their undoing?", you could have a point there, @Bruisername . I love the Britishness of it.

And as with Captain Tom, and Jack Monroe, in all these cases while it is easy to point the finger at the public for being naive and credulous, or at the publishers and commissioners of TV programme, the media as a whole also really fed the frenzy each time and that really lent legitimacy to these people.

It's definitely time for some discussion in the media about who they look to as spokespeople for homelessness and poverty for starters. Why are they drawn to people with sketchy back stories and a taste for Rayburn's/Cotswold furniture company furniture ?

It’s funny because I was brought up with no class sensibilities (foreign parent). I recognise I am middle class but I don’t understand all the nuances of class that every other English person seems to know!!

just listening to R4 and it’s about the woman who died of cancer after not using chemo because her mum is a ‘health influencer’ who posted a lot of anti medecine stuff. Sounds like the mum put her under a lot of pressure and she’d had such an indoctrinated childhood it was hard. She also kept other friends and family away - including boyfriend

eta some things the mum has said

i call the NHS the National Homicide Service

why would you go to hospital and listen to those fat and unhealthy doctors and nurses

In some ways they are revealing the truth.

"I'd started the path thinking that home was the stone walls that surrounded me...after what we'd experienced we knew that it wasn't, that home was a state of mind"

It's not just home, it's reality that is a state of mind. Escape life's unpleasant realities by pretending that they don't exist.

Most people do this to an extent - we procrastinate, we hide from difficult decisions. However, the Winn/Walkers seem to have taken this to pathological levels, leaving chaos in their wake.

I'm very sensitive to class as my parents had no money but we had a fairly middle class upbringing despite that. I feel that my mum was a bit snobby (always policing grammar, not letting us watch Neighbours!!) because she felt the precariousness of her position.

That article in April 2025 shows a photo of them stating that it's from their home in Polruan.

Agree wholeheartedly. That's also why most books these days (novels at least) are sadly lacking in correct grammar, spelling etc, having had no apparent proofreading or editing.

This is a beautifully filmed interview and they both come across very well in it (Moth especially). They live up exactly to how they want to be perceived. I wish I could believe them. I’m amazed that they give this interview - in particular- with a straight face.

It's really irritating reading modern books and finding very basic errors in them

Raynor / Sally’s stint as trustee for Emmaus Cornwall Nov 2021 - Jan 2022 coincides with the timeframe that Ben Cole said about Moth telling him about his terminal diagnosis. She had been at the forefront of a £1 million fundraising campaign - does anyone know if she is still involved with them/they have commented at all?

In fairness, it was never the wily old foxes of publishing who were doing the copy editing and proofreading.

If you look at the first few seconds when she is talking she is shaking her head from side to side, this indicates that it didn't happen. I've watched far too many body language experts on YouTube on you tube !

It's also odd that she's smiling while recounting hiding under the stairs with bailiffs hammering on the door.

Their decision to go on the walk in the first place, as described in the book, seems very well to do middle-class.

That sense that there will always be a soft landing, so you can make an impulsive decision to go hiking.

Do they ever explain how they communicated what they were doing to their family? His parents who I think still lived in the town?

I disagree, I feel she comes across as contrived and as having prepared her spiel. But I grew up abroad and sometimes struggle with communication in Britain.

What did GA mean I wonder by Ray being ‘guarded’ (?) She has a lot to say.

Re: ref to book upthread re: ‘Sleeps’ books spark a lot for Ray. Book in packing crate prompted TSP idea. The book she happens to read in very low time with her mother that later she’s coincidentally asked to write a preface, Copsford, etc.

Firstly - a younger meryl Streep would have been better playing her

secondly - she sounds scripted and he comes across more naturally but then he didn’t speak any of the lies

I dunno. I guess I'm only watching it with the knowledge I have now about them, but there's a look exchanged near the end when he's talking, her head's to the side and she looks like she smirks, then there's a very quick side glance. That looks a bit sneaky, but maybe I wouldn't have noticed it before.

Hmm. You may be right. Moth certainly looks curiously dispassionate and unemotional. I've forwarded the vid to a police criminal psychologist who specialises in analysing body language, to get her thoughts.

Why has Moth swerved other interviews when he comes across so well? Especially re: going shopping at last minute, cancelling photoshoots?

I don't think he comes across well, he's silent she's doing all the talking.