Thread 11: 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 ...
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...
Raynor Winn/Sally Walker's statement Raynor Winn
Thread One www.mumsnet.com/talk/amibeingunreasonable/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/amibeingunreasonable/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/amibeingunreasonable/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/amibeingunreasonable/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/amibeingunreasonable/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/amibeingunreasonable/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?
Thread 9 www.mumsnet.com/talk/amibeingunreasonable/5376712-thread-9-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?
Thread 10 https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/amibeingunreasonable/5378984-thread-10-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

New posters welcome. It would be helpful to read at least the four Observer items above before posting. There are currently 10 items on The Observer website The real Salt Path | The Observer

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 - from experience - this will only encourage them back to the threads. We have done amazingly well together for ten very interesting, very serious and very silly threads so far. I can't be here as much as I'd like so all help with keeping our discussion walking along in a healthy and civil fashion is very welcome.

No saltiness. Keep to the path.

Does stolen fudge taste better?

he is also a master plasterer
he went to the same college as Sally- she says sixth form , he is 2 years older so 20 when she says they met, to me this is more suggestive of day release for plastering apprenticeship than anything else

I agree, I think that college course was a vocational one in plastering.

Yup, another vote here for plastering.

At least he's got something to fall back on...

😇

Well, this is Mumsnet, so just want to throw 2 important things in here (I am being very discreet, I hope, because we know they exist and they are mentioned and credited with the photo on IG, etc.):

1980s/90s
Timothy Walker an eco-activist (Independent interview with Sally Walker, 2018)

Babies in this timeslot

Early 90s
Timothy Walker invests in a friend’s property portfolio (Sally Walker statement, 2025)

@TheBrandyPath

That's an excellent couple of points!

Hope I'm not being too 'mumsie'!

I think it really shows what an absolute nonsense these two things are.

First, how can you be an eco activist and at the same time invest in a friend's property portfolio.

Second, how can you do either when you have little ones to look after.

evening everyone, and thank you to @DisappointedReader for the shiny new thread and to @FurryHappyKittens for an outstanding wiki <applauds> I have been on a long weekend with the ILs so am back now but have so much to catch up on <wails> I was inwardly screaming during last night's board game session thinking of you all listening to the podcast, sigh....

[Weekend went fine btw. Everyone fed, no one dead, as they say, and Duty Done 😇]

I have lurked my way through all the threads hoovering up every last brilliant post.
I don’t have anything of interest to add but I wanted to say thankyou to all the newly formed little community on here that is the very best of Mumsnet.
Sincere and respectful appreciation of each other and of the matters in hand without straying into the gutter.
I am sure I am one of many who have enjoyed from a distance so I speak for the silent fandom 💐

I don’t think there’s much cause for it but if ever needed I’m happy to be housing correspondent having worked in social (council) housing for many years and I also have a decent knowledge of the benefits system.

I do want to say the suggestion that TW invested in anything whilst raising a family on a relatively low income is just not plausible in any way, it’s just not something the average Joe can or would even think of doing.

Or retakes? A levels (?)

Hey, that's my job! 😁

Not impossible, but I think unlikely. We know he is a plasterer, and most people going into that would start at 16. And back then A levels were for academic type of students who would go into office work or to university afterwards.

@DisappointedReader I did get a dire warning for using the term - but you all know I'm being ironic 😏

There was time for embezzlement, sorry, 'mistakes' so you never know!

Another grateful lurker emerging from the woodwork here.
Didn't we hear somewhere that TimMoth's father was a master plasterer? In which case he could have been taught by him rather than at college.

Caught up now and OMG @Uricon2 hope all's going better with you now! A spider bite - who knew? Sending good vibes.

Just mulling over the Botany degree - it's quite an unusual degree anyway IMO. Biosciences or Plant Sciences would be more typical degree names and as has been said, not common these days. I find it difficult to imagine that a journalist would have landed on that as a subject without prompting, nor indeed misheard that term. Like others, I can't quite work out in the timeline when said Botany degree would have been obtained. What I can't connect is how the TW Botany grad would have been known to Raymoth. This might be one of those weird coincidences a la Tortoise prophecy.

I am more inclined to see the film at some point now that I know James Lance/Trent from Ted Lasso is in it. Once of the funniest evenings I had was years ago when a friend and I got last minute tickets to a West End production of a Jeeves & Wooster play involving only 3 actors playing multiple roles. John Gordon Sinclair was the 'name' (also v good) alongside James Lance and another actor whose name I don't recall (sorry, 3rd actor). It was absolutely hilarious and so I was delighted to see JL pop up again in Ted Lasso.

Yes, you are right. We thought that a day release to a college, at the same time, would be likely.

It's ages since I read TSP (and haven't bothered with SW's others) so I can't remember details now, but if TiMoth had had a specialist degree in botany, surely there would have been lots of interesting discoveries and discussions about the plant life along the way? It would be the kind of thing I would imagine the WalkerWinns doing while having sit down stops to rest and recover. How much chat was there about botanical things?

None at all, I don’t think. At least not in TSP - I haven’t read the others.

They spent hours admiring flowers on the Lizard in TSP.

Yes but I can do that and I know tap all about plants. I'd agree with @Fandango52 that there was no informed or even particularly interested discussion of plants or flowers. I've read it in the last month, as Sceptical First Time Reader correspondent. TWS should be arriving soon so I'll see if that's any different but I suspect not.

Was it just general 'these are pretty flowers' or was there more scientific botanical content? I'm just curious.

It really would have been handy if Moth had a botany degree. It could’ve helped them identify plants to add into their meals, to vary the noodle-or-stolen-fudge monotony.

She talks a lot about obsidian; there’s no flora for most of their Iceland walk!

Since your question, I have been looking carefully. And there was very specific interest - on the Lizard! Other than that, just more general references to the bushes as they pass.

They consider eating the seaweed - but think it would take too much gas to cook. And have chips - as usual!