Thread 17: 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 14 Observer items currently available on their online 'The real Salt Path' page: The real Salt Path | The Observer
More from The Observer:
‘Hope is extinguished’: CBD patients respond to Salt Path...
The real Salt Path | The Observer (The Slow Newscast)
Links to more Observer videos can be found in an early post of this new thread and here: Observer YouTube Channel: The Observer UK - YouTube
Working timeline and references: can be found in early posts of this new Thread 17.
Raynor Winn/Sally Walker's statement: Raynor Winn
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?^
Threads 2-11: Links all in the OP of Thread 12
Thread 12: 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?
Threads 13-14: Links in the OP of Thread 15
Thread 15:Thread 15: To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film? | Mumsnet
Thread 16: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5395002-thread-16-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 are welcome. It would be helpful to get the background from at least some of the 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. Remember, even Hollywood rabbits attract the odd flea. 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 sixteen 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.

Yes, it really is Thread 17. I'm as in need of smelling salts as the next person.

We seek them here, we seek them there, mumsnetters seek them everywhere: just where are the elusive How not to Dal dy Dir and On Winter Hill?

#handwavium #appropriation

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

@DoubtfulCat The pattern is the same as I was saying about the French property.

I have asked before on these threads: is there a word for being mass 'gaslit',

Helen Kewell spoke for many when she wrote: “I cannot get my head around the levels of desperation, temerity and deception needed to carry this off.

You're quite right, I just went back and looked.

Bill’s friend Richard, who asked us not to use his surname, was present for the conversation. “It was extraordinarily emotional,” he recalls. “Bill was close to tears. Moth also told him he thought he would already be dead if he hadn’t been living on Haye farm.”

Richard remembers that Bill had become close to Raynor and Moth, messaging them most days. Richard says he was concerned for his friend, however, because the farm was losing money. Cider was not being produced and the orchards were not being attended to.

“But he didn’t care,” says Richard. “He felt kind of responsible for them, and for Moth’s well being .”

So there's independent testimony that Bill Cole wasn't happy with how the Walkers were running the cider part of the farm, but presumably was reluctant take any action because he felt personal liking for the Walkers, and because of Tim's health condition. Difficult to say 'Sorry, guys, this isn't working out and I'm haemorrhaging money -- you need to work a lot harder on the cider production' if the person you're saying it to says he's dying.

Or maybe on this occasion, BC did express dissatisfaction, and that's why TW came back with the proclamation that he was close to death.

@AncientHarpy This has been mentioned before, I would love to know what BC expected of them. The conversation you stated took place in Spring 2019, 2 months after they left the flat and moved in full time BUT in March 2019, for some reason the land was split according to Land Registry entries. The grassland became 'Land at Haye Farm' and instead of being owned by BC was now owned by BC and a Trustee services. The last entry for a change of ownership for Haye Farm was the purchase by BC in 2011. So, not wanting to jump to conclusions, but if you set on tenants and then split the farm into a)house with orchards and b)grassland, that does not look to me as if you are expecting the tenants to full scale farm, but I could be wrong.
If that is the case, what did they do on the farm other than a bit of tidying up? They didn't farm, didn't make cider. They also only mention strimming the brambles etc and from experience that just means that if you turn your back, the brambles reappear.

@RainyTuesdaysAndSunnyWednesdays They have no compunction whatsoever in peddling two contradictory stories. Below is from Country Living magazine.

In other interviews SalRay says that his health deteriorates so much they have to do another long distance walk.

The birds make me laugh - it goes from none to more unusual ones. Boring old me with wrens, magpies and blackbirds in my garden!

When we arrived, the land felt abused and polluted, but we’ve been hard at work removing plastic sheeting, nourishing the soil and bringing wildlife back to the hedgerows. It’s become a big rewilding project – and it’s worked.

A year ago, there were no birds here. Now, there are woodpeckers, yellowhammers and blackcaps. It’s amazing how quickly nature bounces back if you let it. Like humans really…

Sounds like hard work. How’s Moth coping?

I like to think we're rewilding Moth as well as the land. By putting him back into his natural state – moving out in the fields all day – his health has improved almost miraculously, just as it did when we were walking the Coast Path.

I can’t get my head around it either. I’m a combination of sad and angry.
The wellness retreat: I’m assuming that she thought she could teach people to write whilst staying in this lovely house with its grounds and surrounded by areas of natural beauty. They could walk, talk and write but most importantly heal from whatever it was that ails them.
I wish the owner would evict them when their tenancy expires.

Yes, I remember you or someone else citing the Land Registry split threads back.

No, it doesn't look from that as if there was any expectation that the Walkers would farm the farm in its entirety -- but in that case, why on earth does SW make such a song and dance about Moth recalling presumably entirely imaginary inventories of livestock and farm machinery from an imaginary farming past and making a portentuous pronouncement about how they'll have to tell BC he needs to find someone else to 'use the grass' while they concentrate on biodiversity and the orchards?

If they've never been asked to farm the rest of the land, why even mention the grassland, or pretend you had a choice about it?

Like the 'I've been told not to make plans for after Christmas', it seems like an entirely needless lie, that includes lying about the size and scope of their hobby farm in Wales and their farming experience into the bargain.

(And yes, if all they had to do was manage the orchards and make cider, and they didn't even do that, you do wonder what they were doing, other than strimming a bit and taking some old rubbish to landfill. Even the strimming wouldn't have been done if they vanished for four full months in the summer time to walk from Cape Wrath!)

I mean, maybe BC was difficult to deal with, but it strikes me that one of the Walkers' most ingrained characteristics is screwing up some situation and rather than dealing with it, suddenly vanishing without any warning.

Again she’s just re-hashing what she’s written in her book… As loathe as I am to read these books again I’m going to dig them back out and skim through book 2 and 3 with the knowledge and benefit of hindsight. I’m getting confused with all of the muddling lies and discrepancies. Separating fact from fiction. I think I need to check our timeline too because I think she was using their stay at Haye farm to write.

Don't forget it was a wellness retreat not a writing retreat. My bet is that the plan was about charging people to come and do walks nearby, take in the healing power of nature, and return to the house in the evening for some nourishing noodles and fudge and probably a stirring reading of Beowulf from Moth to follow on from Raynor’s impassioned encouragement to rewild themselves. In other words, they hoped to charge people good money for what they themselves accessed almost entirely for free. You don't get rich by giving it away!

TimMoth seems to have let them infer his death was imminent. He said he was told not to make any plans beyond Xmas, technically he didn’t say why that was. Having also known people of this type I’m sure there would be consternation at the suggestion he said he was “dying” when he said no such thing!

He also told some walkers that he was the lecturer on his Uni course, not a student.

He spent time with JI showing him his “limp” that he had during the SWCP walk.

There is the Tim Walker Botanist/Botany degree Plas y Rhiw query.

I think this is Tim, a bit grandiose, a bit of a fibber.

She wrote TWS and LL at Haye Farm.

Sorry, I thought I read somewhere that there was the possibility of writing as well… teaching to write? It was back along with the link to the website.

She also did the publicity for TSP from there

This, Creative Wellness.
The website itself has been deleted of course.
From the title, I think she was going to actually try and teach people to write.

Both TW telling BC he'd been told not to make plans for after Christmas just seems a stupider lie than lying about his past in contexts where his listeners were unlikely to have the impetus and means to check up on his claims to have a degree he didn't have, or a limp he didn't have.

And it's pretty clear what he meant, and how BC received the news. Chloe H reports BC as saying:

“He put his head in his hands and he said : ‘We went to the hospital this week and I’ve been told not to plan beyond Christmas.’” Bill was horrified. “I just went : ‘Oh my God!’ and gave him a big hug.”

And Bill's friend Richard (who was present) said: “It was extraordinarily emotional,” he recalls. “Bill was close to tears. Moth also told him he thought he would already be dead if he hadn’t been living on Haye farm.”

So TW can't even claim that BC misunderstood him, because there's a witness, and he clearly meant his own imminent death. It's a bit more than your classic 'underachieving man pretends to be in the SAS' thing.

@beguiledsilence On the comment of 'no birds' I have this image of Haye Farm existing in a bubble where the wildlife doesn't go and the neighbouring area is full of wildlife. They make is sound as if Haye Farm was overrun with bramble which is actually a very good plant for wildlife, the flowers are nectar rich, plenty of fruit and the stems and branches provide excellent refuge and shelter for small animals and birds. And then there are the apple trees, attracting insects and therefore birds, so somehow, I don't think there weren't any birds! Maybe like you say, everyday birds just don't count.

Well, she was certainly teaching nature writing for Arvon, and she must have taught on at least one or two because a blogger mentions having 'recently' attended one with 'RW' and Cathy Rentzenbrink in January 2022. She did an 'online writing day' for them in March 2025. Helen Jukes and RW were supposed to be co-tutoring on an Arvon residential in August 2025 (because it's still up on Helen Jukes's Instagram as originally advertised, though I assume RW was replaced when it actually happened). She's also still listed on Arvon's tutor archive.

Some of them imagery in the books does make me laugh as I picture it. One is in Landlines for which I read the preview in TWS:
Moth cuts another branch, lowering it to the ground, then sits on it, exhausted by the effort, ready to give in.
I know I am reading forensically and being pedantic (and petty), but what size branch can you cut, lower to the ground that would be big enough to sit on?

I also wish we could turn all these threads into book format. I was looking back through for something and found all sorts of snippets which I only half remembered.

She changes her mind when talking to Cornwall Live, this time:

"Not to rewild in the sense of closing the field gate and letting nature take its course, but to find a way to restore the biodiversity to the silent landscape while still allowing it to be a traditional farm. "
Eventually, after much consideration, they finally took up this offer, where they have been living for almost two years.
Winn said: "The aim has been to put some areas aside for wildlife while keeping others in production, but without overstocking, or heavy inputs of fertiliser or weedkillers - we’re hoping to create wildlife corridors among lightly farmed fields. I think of it not as rewilding, but more as restorative farming.

Does this then mean that Moth has been restoratively farmed - rather than rewilded? The mind boggles .....

So they are saying that, two years in, they are farming the land but that their rewilding aims sound like they are still in the future.

And she does have a very strange way of talking about her husband.

Yes, they transport us back in time to watching Medieval Strolling Players:

Many ordinary medieval people loved the entertainment that strolling players provided, however, medieval people were also wary of them, some thought of them as being vagabonds and thieves who created problems and stole things whilst they visited and then vanished to the next medieval town or village.

These types will argue “I didn’t say I was dying” of course that was heavily implied, but if you’ve dealt with this sort you can predict where the deflection and obfuscation will come.

It makes no sense to “imply” you won’t be alive very soon when you fully intend to be, but that doesn’t stop them. I think that reflects the level of comfort they have with telling disprovable fibs.

To them it isn’t a long-term problem anyway; they just do a flit and trust Bill won’t speak up. If he hears Moth isn’t dead at a later stage, so what? If he speaks up, deal with it then. It solved the immediate problem - no work done on the farm, and a desire to do the Rick Stein tv piece. Gets Bill off their back/on their side, get through the day, flit in a few weeks.

Possibly this lie has worked before. English brother with incurable cancer…Sally abandoned the car at the sea…

..like to think we're rewilding Moth as well as the land. By putting him back into his natural state – moving out in the fields all day – his health has improved almost miraculously, just as it did when we were walking the Coast Path.

While at the same time his health was deteriorating so much that they needed to do another Walk and later have him tell Enormous Fibs to Bill Cole.

What the nephew said in the long deleted LinkedIn thing about sums it up. Some people are pathological liars, they lie for the Hell of it even when there is absolutely no need. I think on this scale they're fairly rare but it is clear to me that Raymoth had a lot of practice, perhaps at times to get themselves out of hot water/for advantage and sometimes because it has become as natural as breathing.

@BeguiledSilence absolutely perfect comparison.. so apt!
@RainyTuesdaysAndSunnyWednesdays the branch… absolutely…. Smh.. it’s laughable. I didn’t even notice how ridiculous that was. It sounds like he felled a bloody big branch and to what purpose? It seems to me that Bill got the impression from her books that they would be perfect for the project he had in mind… but Here we go again… Sally wasn’t being truthful and instead of Raynor and Moth, he gets Laurel and Hardy.
@LetsBeSensible it was just a perfect opportunity for exposure, extra publicity. She wasn’t exactly kind to Bill in her book, changed his name of course and how much else.
Icidentally, when a book is available for pre order, are funds taken from your bank at the point of ordering or at despatch? She could still be making money from sales before OWH has even launched.

For people with nothing to hide, a deleted website seems very strange, no?