Thread 12: 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
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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 eleven 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.
Will our life-size cardboard cut-out Simon Armitage keep his head?
NB Timeline coming in the first posts of this thread for reference.

The video isn't flipped. He wears his watch on his left wrist, both here and in photos I've seen.

I have no doubt he has some kind of illness. But it appears to me to be very likely he's been misdiagnosed, and potentially because of much of it is reliant on what TW himself has communicated to Drs regarding his own physical symptoms. For instance, the 2015 letter mentions that TW had to begin resting his arm on a shirt button. Yet he seems totally cured of having to do this now. Where is the progression, however slow, after 16 years since first seing a Dr about his issues in 2009? I don't doubt he is ill, but I doubt what he has is CBD and I doubt the claimed severity of whatever it is he has. If we are to believe Bill Coles, then we know TW has the ability to exaggerate.

If he was doing the HND he'd not have got as much of a loan or be able to do a PGCE afterwards. I take "planned" to mean something coming up. If he'd already started the course the word "planned" in this context would be redundant. The likelihood is, based on evidence, he started in 2015. There'll always be a measure of doubt.

Maybe add the Saltlines tour with Gigspanner which launched in the summer of 2022 according to their website
https://www.gigspanner.com/saltlines

@AldoGordo If we are to believe Bill Coles, then we know TW has the ability to exaggerate.

To put it mildly - if he had at most 2 months to live.

Is there a pattern of him telling other chaps 'more' about himself

Jason has the suicidal thoughts, plus the not being able to read.

Even Boots hears that he is a lecturer (although I would put that in the botany degree category).

It sounds made up that either of them would pack a survival bag 😁

Could the exaggeration aspect of so much of the Walkers' schtick be a symptom of pathological lying?

A small case in point is how much tax credit they were receiving while on TSP. In the book it is clearly stated as £48 although it goes down at one point due to their house insurance DD being debited from the a/c. In a later interview SW claims that the weekly payments started off at £48 but went down to £30. Then in the most recent interview with the German film distribution company in May 2025 she clearly says that weekly payments started at £38 and then went down to £25. There seems to be an almost pathological need to exaggerate.

No consultant on earth gives you a 2 month life prognosis unless you have a 2 month life prognosis ...which if you're lucky might be extended to 3 months.

I think he may have agreed & resolved at start of TSP ‘project’ to have Ray on any media/‘to camera’ piece & he, looking at evidence you state plus, not so much, being free to speak rather more candidly off line. I think there has been a lot of precision planning perhaps…

They are both wearing their watches on their left wrist (at least in the still) so I don't think the video is flipped.
I thought CBD impairment always starts on the left side, isn't that what John said in the last Observer podcast?
I think it's likely he has something, but hardly CBD.

I'm a sceptical first time reader.

Why does SW make such a huge fuss about finding a guidebook that follows the route starting at Minehead?

A seasoned pair of hikers can easily follow a route in the opposite direction to that given. It's not that difficult especially with a coastal path walk. Yes it can get a bit confusing sometimes, if the directions are ambivalent, especially at the end of the day when tired, but it's perfect doable. I've done it many times myself.

The silver box in the orchard shot is for lighting/filming/ audio equipment.

I am happy to be Pennine correspondent if you'll let me. checks nearby moorland . No dead ewes.

I'm now home and preparing to share what is on the marriage record. The reason I thought it would be of interest is that Scottish marriage records contain much more information than those from England. They include dates of birth, details of parents, and occupations for both parties.

While this is a public record which anyone can see if they either pay for it to be posted out, or visit a Scotland's People Centre for the day (at a cost of £15), I am only sharing what I would share on an open family tree for living persons, so I won't share dates of birth. Nor will I name the witnesses - I don't know if they are friends or some randoms they met on the way to the Registry Office.

However to be sure I don't get this thread into trouble, I just want to check if you think it is okay to share the addresses they lived at in 1986? Is that already known? I'm thinking they could be found on Electoral Rolls. And likewise, the parents' details? I think most of this has been shared already and they are all, as far as I am aware, deceased. This make me think it should be okay, but I just wanted to be sure.

I'm making it sound much more interesting than it is!

😂 and presumably they couldn’t find Beautiful Liar either.

Apparently when they were there the Pennines littered with dead rabbits too? And very parched.

Thanks for this & clarification on boxes. Does that not jar with apparent timing of shot & suggests a retrospective photo? If so she has dressed in old gear & might suggest other shots retrospective too? Does it matter anyway if for publicity for book/film?

Well, in TWS, RW says he graduated with a BSc just as TSP was hitting the bookshops. So I assume that's summer of 2018, if we assume that's the hardback? I think it came out in paperback around the time they move to the cider farm, spring of 2019...?

(Something to add to the timeline, maybe, @FurryHappyKittens?)

So that would be 2018, and the course takes 3 years full-time, which would fit if he was doing that (or 6 part-time).
But since we're talking SW here, I won't be convinced until I see a certificate...

That fits with an autumn 2015 start. First year 2015-16, second year 2016-17, third year 2017-18. We still have the missing year and one year delay from the planned start in autumn 2014 to account for. TSP says he was accepted but he may have then chosen to defer for a year as many students do for gap years, earning money etc.

Possibly not but its a bit strange that SW has suddenly removed this photo from her IG feed.....

Nothing the author says can be taken at face value.

The odd dead rabbit yes. Littered? No. I don't think I have ever seen a dead ewe and that is after four decades of tramping the Pennines. I have found them 'rigged' in bad weather when they get on their backs and can't get the right way up again due to the weight of the fleece, and with their heads stuck through fencing etc. Easy enough to sort out if there are two of you. I have occasionally seen road death casualties by the fast roads in the Northern Pennines. Lambs yes, a couple of times maybe.

The moors do get very dry like any other piece of terrain after a long hot dry spell.

I suppose CH is in a better position than us to find these things out if that episode is interesting to her.
I wonder what her planned places and people article will be about.

We could surmise then, that some or even all seemingly random image deletions, point to concerns over retrospective, staged photos?

Even though such photos might be understandable & acceptable (?)

Yes, they have drawn suspicion precisely because they've been deleted. They probably would not have been scrutinised had they just remained in place.

Unless the deletions are a clever smokescreen to delete random ones, thereby distracting attention from other areas of enquiry.

I know the southern pennines well. Dead rabbits are def not a feature: you get hares on the upland moors but I've never seen a dead hare either.

Dead sheep, yes. Usually just around the upstream bend of the river in which you've just paddled. (Shades of Enid Blyton!)

I don't know about rabbits ...that would be throwing in a dead cat....