Thread 13: 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's original exposé: The real Salt Path: how a blockbuster book and film were ...

The 12 Observer reports currently available online: The real Salt Path | The Observer

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?^

Threads 2-11: Links all in the OP of Thread 12

Thread 12: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5384574-thread-12-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

New posters joining us in the genuine spirit of our civil discourse welcome. It would be helpful to read at least some of the Observer items above before posting. There are currently 12 interesting items on The Observer website and linked to above.

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 twelve 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 our usual reasonable and respectful fashion is very welcome.

Have the sales or thefts of fudge gone up recently?
Will Simon's head ever turn up?
Has the shed of doubt yet burst at the seams?
Will the old charabanc hold up as a tour bus for our hip new band The Drive-By Scolders?
And finally, how much salt can we possibly cram into a giant pinch?

Keep to the path. No saltiness. May the fudge be with you.

That assumed there'll be any money left. They don't have a stellar record when it comes to money management and life choices. And a news story last week(?) revealed they are currently renting an estate that they probably can't afford long-term, especially if the gravy train has now been cancelled.

Well, compared to both parents apparently being unemployed for several years because they were working on the court case, with their only income coming from holidaymakers staying in their barn, I imagine it’s still a considerable step up. And as long as the existing books stay in print, money will still accrue. SW still, I think, has the option for a carefully-judged fourth book at some point, if not with PRH, then with another publisher.

On the phone - isn’t the description of it at odds with one you can take selfies?

Regarding all the speculation about how the Walkers must feel about their awful parents, has it been forgotten that in 2020 they started a company with their parents?
They clearly haven't severed ties.
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/12547141/filing-history

Only Sally Walker & Timothy Walker are listed as officers of that company. Perhaps it was another company that they formed with their children?

Wow @Gouache
well anything in the range you’ve mentioned is a small fortune. I guess you’re right tho, film rights are the real unknowable

I'm not sure the film rights would be as much as we might imagine especially for a low budget film. But I don't know.

The first filed document shows four shareholders.

CH is careful about what she says so possibly has proof? The Indian hotelier angle is interesting & a good thought - do we know who owned the hotel she worked in prior to it going bust? Eisteddfod Mums - I’d need to look at map - will do - not in her vicinity? What’s place like, what are the Mums like? Is the city accountant crooked/in trouble/a risk taker? Did she write it at time of embezzlijg?

I think she has a very good imagination. Loner wide readers often do. I can’t recall - maybe someone does - book she said she was currently reading in an interview. It was about a WW2 escapee prisoner on the run. I knew a ‘writer’ who lifted bits of out of print books & borrowed themes (ok) passing off as own work. Actually quite a few do this & get away with it. Downton Abbey plots I’ve read elsewhere, not saying it’s plagiarised. Not saying Ray has done this but she’s def a similar type. If she has ‘there’s always someone, somewhere with a big nose, who knows, who trips you up & laughs when you fall’ :).

The dead sheep & it’s repeat in TSP surely can only point to Ray or Moth or a collab? I think TSP may be a bit of a collaboration itself in parts. The name of author surely means a close connection (?)

Are there any clues in ‘Stopcock’ as to background if ‘all this’? Another writer in the family. Another book that can’t be found.

With the successful (?) film - how much has it made so far? Low millions might be conservative - 10 mill? Someone with exp in area may know. How will ‘loads of money’ play out for both of them?

I can’t understand as Moth taken a turn for worse she sets out to walk alone in difficult conditions in ‘On Winter Hill’. Maybe missing something.

Yes, I think she put it to private after the scandal broke. It's unfortunate that we are speculating about their children, as nobody chooses their parents.

*I mean 10 mill to Raymoth not film. Will they skip to Channel Isles as tax exiles to write about Sark & trek around the Isles? Actually now I come to think about it, the WW2 escapee book she’s reading, featured Channel Isles I think.

No, download the first document and scroll down to the list of shareholders. They are there, with the same number of shares as their parents.

This sounds quite likely to me.

@ShrinkWrappedInSeattle

• TimMoth is a rule breaker too - they skive off college to go rock climbing - plus all the eco warrior stuff. Seems she is really attracted to this side of him. (Amongst all the other reasons she’s attracted to him).

What struck me most about the rock climbing episode was not so much skipping college but the total disregard to danger they show - he sends her climbing up a steep cliff without experience or proper gear, she almost kills him by letting go of the rope to take a picture (although how she could hold his weight at all seems physically unlikely?) but all those near death experiences only create a special bond between them - proper 'amour foux' stuff?

But then it might just all be made up to create a romantic narrative for the reader. After all, she switched their wedding forward 5 years in TWS to make it sound like they eloped when she was still a teen within a year after they met, as opposed to waiting a couple years and marrying as twenty-somethings.

By first I mean oldest

"The dead sheep & it’s repeat in TSP surely can only point to Ray or Moth or a collab?"

This feels a bit of a stretch. Of itself, there's nothing unique or unrepeatable about a dead sheep, especially in a book (partially) set in the countryside. And all we know about the dead sheep in HNTDDD is a stray reference in a blurb, so we don't know what happens to that sheep, and how it's played (I get the impression it's treated humorously).

If we had the book, and it turned out the sheep is an old beloved friend that dies in sad circumstances and is solemnly buried, as happens in TSP, that would be a different matter.

So it does. Apologies. Here is a direct link to the document showing Sally, Timothy plus son & daughter with equal shares in the company.

tinyurl.com/FourHaresIncorporation

The film budget was about £7million. That would probably include the purchase of the film rights. So assume the Walkers got £1-£2 million for it.

This from the internet:

More than 2 million copies of "The Salt Path" have been sold worldwide. While it's believed that Winn was paid a modest advance of about £10,000 ($13,500) for her first book, she has made £9.5 million ($12.8 million) in book sales, including from three follow-ups, according to data from Nielsen BookScan.12 Jul 2025

Not sheep alone, yes.

BUT Izzy Wyn-Thomas (?) amalgam of relevant names, and all at Gangani invented or otherwise -raffle circumstances? Surely the odds of a totally unconnected person writing book are very slim?

SallRay won't personally have made £9.5 million. The publisher will have received the bulk of the receipts. As a rough rule of thumb authors will receive £1 for each hardback & 50p per paperback so her total earnings will still be in the millions. The money has been received over the last six years so a decent six figure income annually rather than a multi-million windfall..

I think you’re right. The children would surely have been aware of things going on, leading to their parents losing the house, but it’s highly likely they were spun the same vague ‘explanation’ that SW writes in her ‘rebuttal.’ That it was a difficult time, there were mistakes being made in the business she was working for. Perhaps throw in a bit of ‘difficult economic times’. Or maybe she claimed Martin Hemmings had lent her £64,000, which was what she also tried to claim at one point I think!!!

We can be pretty sure they wouldn’t have known the whole truth. I feel sympathy for them because none of this is their fault. And as I mentioned before, the utter hypocrisy of SW criticising her own mother for being uber controlling, and then making disparaging comments about her own children simply because they were following the route of university and then working, rather than being ‘free spirits’ (or rather, freeloaders!) … it all highlights once more that SW can’t help showing the distain she feels towards other people.

So a few hundred k a year only (?) ‘Only’ lol :) but you’ll know what I mean. No lump sum to buy a house without a mortgage etc?