Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Thread 9: To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film?

1000 replies

DisappointedReader · 20/07/2025 00:16

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

2nd Observer https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/the-salt-path-whats-in-the-book-and-what-the-observer-has-found

3rd Observer https://observer.co.uk/news/national/article/the-salt-path-the-truth-behind-the-blockbuster-book-video

4th Observer ‘I felt I was being gaslit’ – the landlord who helped Ray...

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

Thread 3 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5369425-thread-3-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

Thread 4 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5370609-thread-4-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

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

Thread 6 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5372494-thread-6-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-
husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

Thread 7 www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5373425-thread-7-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

Thread 8 www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5375023-thread-8-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

Raynor Winn/Sally Walker's statement Raynor Winn

New posters welcome. It would be helpful to read at least the four Observer items above before posting.

To all - Please be extremely cautious when it comes to naming or implicating people and addresses not in the public eye or with no direct connection to the story, and around the understandable health speculations, especially where details are unclear or still emerging. Please do not engage with visitors who seem to have their own agenda and seek to derail. Avoid @'ing and quoting them as this will only encourage them back to the threads.

We have done amazingly well together - in the main that is, not mentioning any names but you know who you are! - for eight threads so far. I can't be on the threads as much as I'd like so all help with keeping our discussion ticking along in a healthy and civil fashion is very welcome.

No saltiness. Keep to the path. Thank you.

The real Salt Path: what’s in the book, and what The Obse...

The real Salt Path: what’s in the book, and what The Obse...

Raynor and Moth Winn’s redemptive journey from penury and homelessness led to a bestselling book. The truth behind it is very different

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

OP posts:
Thread gallery
52
MargaretThursday · 23/07/2025 18:25

AnAlpacaForChristmasPleaseSanta · 23/07/2025 18:13

Enid Blyton famously being one of them, which always taints my love of her books fractionally.

Mind you the Secret Seven had a 100% success rate. If they were real (and not aged around 98 which the must surely be now) they'd settle The Mystery of The WalkerWinns.

I don't think Enid Blyton hated children.

She had a difficult relationship with her younger daughter*; but she put a lot of energy into meeting children and talking to them, so I don't think you could say she hated children.

*Her younger daughter wrote a tell-all book about her childhood, however her older daughter disputed it, talking about a "perfect" childhood.

Spindleweed · 23/07/2025 18:59

mauvishagain · 23/07/2025 18:00

Going back a few posts, to where the Winns farmed: SW's older sister married in the 1970s in the same registration district (in Staffordshire) as the one in which her mother died in 2015. So it's probably fair to assume that SW's birth family was based on that area throughout her adult life.

Good sleuthing! I wonder if the sister is ‘Polly’. It would fit, if we accept that Raynor’s description of her farm as being somewhere they had no connection to was just intended to obfuscate any link to family members. (As the reader might legitimately wonder why, if a sibling was happy to put them up for the guts of a year, she didn’t make the same offer two months earlier, when apparently they literally had no options other than wild camping just after a terminal diagnosis .)

There’s also something quite sibling rivalry-ish in the way Raynor describes talking to Polly when they’re living on her farm, resenting that, whereas before they’d both had homes and farms and livestock, now ‘Polly’ has all the power and security.

Do we know where the Melton Mowbray connection comes in? The Melton Times quotes a BBC article in which Raynor says, about meeting Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs, ‘It’s not what’s supposed to happen to a girl from Melton Mowbray’.

DisappointedReader · 23/07/2025 19:02

DisappointedReader · 22/07/2025 00:06

Correspondents in no particular order:
@Choux Finance and Hotel Bookkeeping
@exasperatedflatmate @fruit66 SWCP and Cornwall
@AnAlpacaForChristmasPleaseSanta Fudge
@TonstantWeader Wales
@AldoGordo Journalism, LDW, Public Records and Cats
@Iwrotesomething Writing and TV
@FarmerPilesofJam Farming and Buckets
@PullTheBricksDown Sceptical First Time Reading
@cricketandwhodunnits Cricket
@StaySpicy Military, Morris and Maypole Dancing
@Chateaudiaries France
@swpath @TheBrandyPath @WorthySloth SWCP and Devon
@mauvishagain Medical
@WartFace BS Detecting
@OpenThatWindow KitKats and Field Trips
@SwetSwetSwet Biology
@candycane222 Oscar Wilde and Rosie and Jim
@Vroomfondleswaistcoat Writing
@Songlines SWCP, Devon and Scones
@mycatismyworld Cats
@TonstantWeader 's Dog Rovering Wild Poo Reporter
@DisappointedReader Disappointment and Thread (Dis)Order

Poets in Residence:
@FudgeitOnaBudget and ChatGPT

Songstress
@SereneLilac

Honorary Thread Member:
Simon Armitage

Statement:
Mistakes were made in compiling the above but they were not my fault, they were everybody else's fault, they were not very big mistakes anyway and in fact no mistakes were made at all. It was a busy time and the milkman had just put his prices up.

To all the esteemed correspondents I have missed off because I am so arty, flowery and at one with the land and nature after getting lost on the salty path of nine threads and 8600 posts, I am truly sorry not sorry. If you would like to contact me even though I have just moved again to a secret location to avoid Thread 10 then I will be happy to repay my debts add them to the spreadsheet.

New correspondents always welcome for the price of a scone, a CFOF and a poem.

Edited

1st Addendum (amended)
Correspondents/Portfolios:
@Cakeandcheeseforever Cornwall
@AlertCat Pedantry
@ZiggyPlaysGuitarrr Raysal Memoirs Content
@ShrinkWrappedInSeattle Drinking Games and Psychology
@gattocattivo Board Games
@Catwith69lives Pigeonniers and Hiking

2nd Addendum
Correspondents/Portfolios:
@OhEsme Psychology
@Redheadedstepchild Bond Girls, Muses and Forest Fires
@ThatFluentHedgehog Copyright, Thread Historian, Kitchen ranges, Field trips, Non-AI Resident Poet
@MarmiteWine Legacy Media
@Localres Writing, Publishing, Journalism
@Debsthegardener Property Law, Horticulture, Wild Poos, Gangsters

I know I'm still missing our other pp on France, amongst others. Let me know if I've missed you, or any of your specialisms, out or got anything wrong, so that I can find someone or something else to blame for mistakes being made. It's a busy time and the price of butter has gone up. Thank you.

OP posts:
FurryHappyKittens · 23/07/2025 19:06

I'll be Overseas Correspondent.

DisappointedReader · 23/07/2025 19:08

FurryHappyKittens · 23/07/2025 19:06

I'll be Overseas Correspondent.

Have you gone on your holidays Furry?

OP posts:
Catwith69lives · 23/07/2025 19:10

Spindleweed · 23/07/2025 18:59

Good sleuthing! I wonder if the sister is ‘Polly’. It would fit, if we accept that Raynor’s description of her farm as being somewhere they had no connection to was just intended to obfuscate any link to family members. (As the reader might legitimately wonder why, if a sibling was happy to put them up for the guts of a year, she didn’t make the same offer two months earlier, when apparently they literally had no options other than wild camping just after a terminal diagnosis .)

There’s also something quite sibling rivalry-ish in the way Raynor describes talking to Polly when they’re living on her farm, resenting that, whereas before they’d both had homes and farms and livestock, now ‘Polly’ has all the power and security.

Do we know where the Melton Mowbray connection comes in? The Melton Times quotes a BBC article in which Raynor says, about meeting Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs, ‘It’s not what’s supposed to happen to a girl from Melton Mowbray’.

Sally A Winn was born in Melton Mowbray registration district in 1962.

New movie based on Melton woman's moving story

AldoGordo · 23/07/2025 19:11

Spindleweed · 23/07/2025 18:59

Good sleuthing! I wonder if the sister is ‘Polly’. It would fit, if we accept that Raynor’s description of her farm as being somewhere they had no connection to was just intended to obfuscate any link to family members. (As the reader might legitimately wonder why, if a sibling was happy to put them up for the guts of a year, she didn’t make the same offer two months earlier, when apparently they literally had no options other than wild camping just after a terminal diagnosis .)

There’s also something quite sibling rivalry-ish in the way Raynor describes talking to Polly when they’re living on her farm, resenting that, whereas before they’d both had homes and farms and livestock, now ‘Polly’ has all the power and security.

Do we know where the Melton Mowbray connection comes in? The Melton Times quotes a BBC article in which Raynor says, about meeting Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs, ‘It’s not what’s supposed to happen to a girl from Melton Mowbray’.

Melton connection is RW and sister were born there and parents were married there. Seems they moved in early 60s to the farm near Burton.

Spindleweed · 23/07/2025 19:14

AldoGordo · 23/07/2025 19:11

Melton connection is RW and sister were born there and parents were married there. Seems they moved in early 60s to the farm near Burton.

Edited

Thank you.

@DisappointedReader, I think @FurryHappyKittens just wants to be sent on an all-expenses-paid French trip to investigate traditional pigeonnier architecture. 😀

AldoGordo · 23/07/2025 19:18

Spindleweed · 23/07/2025 18:59

Good sleuthing! I wonder if the sister is ‘Polly’. It would fit, if we accept that Raynor’s description of her farm as being somewhere they had no connection to was just intended to obfuscate any link to family members. (As the reader might legitimately wonder why, if a sibling was happy to put them up for the guts of a year, she didn’t make the same offer two months earlier, when apparently they literally had no options other than wild camping just after a terminal diagnosis .)

There’s also something quite sibling rivalry-ish in the way Raynor describes talking to Polly when they’re living on her farm, resenting that, whereas before they’d both had homes and farms and livestock, now ‘Polly’ has all the power and security.

Do we know where the Melton Mowbray connection comes in? The Melton Times quotes a BBC article in which Raynor says, about meeting Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs, ‘It’s not what’s supposed to happen to a girl from Melton Mowbray’.

Could be sister, though the acknowledgements in TSP could also indicate one of them is her sister, while Polly is also named.

DisappointedReader · 23/07/2025 19:20

Spindleweed · 23/07/2025 19:14

Thank you.

@DisappointedReader, I think @FurryHappyKittens just wants to be sent on an all-expenses-paid French trip to investigate traditional pigeonnier architecture. 😀

I think @Catwith69lives got in first with that one!

OP posts:
Catwith69lives · 23/07/2025 19:21

This reply has been hidden

This reply has been hidden until the MNHQ team can have a look at it.

swpath · 23/07/2025 19:22

I think Enid Blyton is due a fresh pair of eyes, preferably a Mumsnet relationship pair.
Husband had an affair, couldn't divorce, he spent the money, didn't work. Enid was churning out book after book, often in a fortnight as well as editing and providing content for her magazine. Plus a huge mount of branded stuff along with carrying the mental load for raising her girls.
Would have broken me.

DisappointedReader · 23/07/2025 19:25

I hope you have not just strayed off the path @Catwith69lives ? <steely look>

OP posts:
RainbowZebraWarrior · 23/07/2025 19:26

swpath · 23/07/2025 19:22

I think Enid Blyton is due a fresh pair of eyes, preferably a Mumsnet relationship pair.
Husband had an affair, couldn't divorce, he spent the money, didn't work. Enid was churning out book after book, often in a fortnight as well as editing and providing content for her magazine. Plus a huge mount of branded stuff along with carrying the mental load for raising her girls.
Would have broken me.

For what it's worth, as an Autistic woman, I also think Enid was Autistic. (And I was obsessed with her books as a child)

Singsong333 · 23/07/2025 19:28

RainbowZebraWarrior · 23/07/2025 19:26

For what it's worth, as an Autistic woman, I also think Enid was Autistic. (And I was obsessed with her books as a child)

Enid Blyton's books saved my childhood. I owe her everything.

Spindleweed · 23/07/2025 19:33

swpath · 23/07/2025 19:22

I think Enid Blyton is due a fresh pair of eyes, preferably a Mumsnet relationship pair.
Husband had an affair, couldn't divorce, he spent the money, didn't work. Enid was churning out book after book, often in a fortnight as well as editing and providing content for her magazine. Plus a huge mount of branded stuff along with carrying the mental load for raising her girls.
Would have broken me.

I don’t think her biggest fan would claim EB was faultless, though. Yes, her first husband was an unfaithful alcoholic, possibly compounded by PSTD from WW1, but she’s supposed to have been chronically unfaithful too, including several gay affairs, one of them with her daughters’ nanny. Then, after starting an affair with the man she would later marry, she persuaded her first husband to admit to being the cause of the marriage breaking down, in exchange for letting him see their daughters after the divorce. She went back on her word, blocked him from seeing them and made sure he could never get another job in publishing.

It’s not really Famous Five territory, is it?😀😱

Spindleweed · 23/07/2025 19:33

Singsong333 · 23/07/2025 19:28

Enid Blyton's books saved my childhood. I owe her everything.

Oh, I adored them too! But there’s no denying their author was a complex and not particularly pleasant individual.

TheBrandyPath · 23/07/2025 19:33

Hi everyone. I have another discrepancy. Yesterday, I shared the article below. I was brought to it from a quote by Tim Walker within the Wikipedia article about Plas yn Rhiw. That quote is now missing from Wiki. Extract: Tim came to the garden ten years ago. He was living in Staffordshire with his wife Sally and their two young children ---- and working for the family business as a master plasterer, but had a degree in botany.
(each time I have edited out the childrens' names)

My question is: did Timoth do a Masters at Plymouth, if he already had a degree (and what about the grant)? Did he not have a degree but clinched the head gardener's job? Did people assume he was the well-qualified botanist with the same name?

  1. www.bbc.co.uk/wales/northwest/outdoors/features/rhiw.shtml" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">"The life of a garden". BBC Wales. 7 September 2004. Archived from the original on 7 September 2004. Retrieved 9 July 2025.

BBC - North West Wales Outdoors - Plas yn Rhiw

A brief history of the National Trust's Plas yn Rhiw manor house on the Ll?n Peninsula and an introduction to its organic garden, managed by Tim Walker.

https://web.archive.org/web/20040907014133/https://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/northwest/outdoors/features/rhiw.shtml

AnAlpacaForChristmasPleaseSanta · 23/07/2025 19:34

MargaretThursday · 23/07/2025 18:25

I don't think Enid Blyton hated children.

She had a difficult relationship with her younger daughter*; but she put a lot of energy into meeting children and talking to them, so I don't think you could say she hated children.

*Her younger daughter wrote a tell-all book about her childhood, however her older daughter disputed it, talking about a "perfect" childhood.

I'm just going on the fact that there was a post the other day on the celebs who aren't as nice as you'd hoped thread about how she used to invite children from a local school for tea to promote her latest book but she wasn't very nice to them and nobody ever really wanted to go.

Her daughter was also an advisor on the drama they made about EB starring Helena Bonham Carter and it was quite brutal in its depiction. I'm aware her other daughter disputed it but disgruntled daughter must have had her reasons for saying what she did. Ultimately though we'll never really know.

swpath · 23/07/2025 19:39

Spindleweed · 23/07/2025 19:33

I don’t think her biggest fan would claim EB was faultless, though. Yes, her first husband was an unfaithful alcoholic, possibly compounded by PSTD from WW1, but she’s supposed to have been chronically unfaithful too, including several gay affairs, one of them with her daughters’ nanny. Then, after starting an affair with the man she would later marry, she persuaded her first husband to admit to being the cause of the marriage breaking down, in exchange for letting him see their daughters after the divorce. She went back on her word, blocked him from seeing them and made sure he could never get another job in publishing.

It’s not really Famous Five territory, is it?😀😱

She wouldn't have time for all that now, be to busy defending her choices on AIBU...

Vroomfondleswaistcoat · 23/07/2025 19:40

AnAlpacaForChristmasPleaseSanta · 23/07/2025 19:34

I'm just going on the fact that there was a post the other day on the celebs who aren't as nice as you'd hoped thread about how she used to invite children from a local school for tea to promote her latest book but she wasn't very nice to them and nobody ever really wanted to go.

Her daughter was also an advisor on the drama they made about EB starring Helena Bonham Carter and it was quite brutal in its depiction. I'm aware her other daughter disputed it but disgruntled daughter must have had her reasons for saying what she did. Ultimately though we'll never really know.

Children within the same family can have very different experiences of growing up. Look at the whole 'golden child/scapegoat' scenario.

Catwith69lives · 23/07/2025 19:49

DisappointedReader · 23/07/2025 19:25

I hope you have not just strayed off the path @Catwith69lives ? <steely look>

it was a guide to architectural styles of pigeonniers in the Lot et Garonne (in French)

DisappointedReader · 23/07/2025 19:52

Catwith69lives · 23/07/2025 19:49

it was a guide to architectural styles of pigeonniers in the Lot et Garonne (in French)

A likely story! Wink

It was a Just Giving link, wasn't it, to fund your 'investigative' trip to France?

OP posts:
FurryHappyKittens · 23/07/2025 19:56

DisappointedReader · 23/07/2025 19:08

Have you gone on your holidays Furry?

Almost! ✈️

I will be in France, briefly, but nowhere near the fabled pigeonnier!

😁

FurryHappyKittens · 23/07/2025 19:59

Singsong333 · 23/07/2025 19:28

Enid Blyton's books saved my childhood. I owe her everything.

Ditto. My favourite series was The Famous Five.

I loved Kirrin Island. And the idea of old railway tunnels that shot steam out through hillsides as trains went through!

And may I say I had no truck with the extra books written by someone else.

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.

This thread is not accepting new messages.
Swipe left for the next trending thread