Thread 19: 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 ...

First thread: To feel disappointed after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film? | Mumsnet

Links to threads 2-16, the other 20 Observer articles and videos to date, Raynor Winn/Sally Walker's statement, our timeline and sources can all be accessed in the OP and first few posts of Thread 17: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5403285-thread-17-to-feel-disappointed-after-reading-this-in-the-observer-about-the-author-and-her-husband-from-the-salt-path-book-and-film?

Thread 18: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5422393-thread-18-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 exposé items 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 drive-by scolders 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. Over four months we have done amazingly well together for 18 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.

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

"I'll fight anyone who says I'll make it to Christmas 2021!"

The piece does raise questions but Jennifer Bridge should acknowledge that only some readers got carried away with the emotion and hard luck story; others were a bit more suspicious. Not everyone who has experienced adversity got caught up in the WW's narrative, especially those who were genuinely unintentionally homeless because they'd recognise that the story is highly unlikely to be true. It's been pointed out that there were a lot of circumstances that made TSP successful like the pandemic restrictions and readers loving the triumph over terminal illness part of the story.

I'm with Bridge's colleague who said: "What idiot loses their house?" Investment can be a gamble and there's no guarantee of making a profit but all the investor loses is the money they invested. How could putting money into a friend's business venture lead to them losing their home? It doesn't make sense at all. This has always been what puzzles me about Penguin, Salray's agent and the film makers. Their failure to get an explanation about exactly how they lost the house is an unanswered question. Perhaps they, as Bridge writes, wanted a happy ending story and loved the idea of innocent people suffering but overcoming it all by sheer physical effort.

The answer to your question is leverage or debt. If you buy a house for £100k, mortgage it for £80k. 20 years later the value of the house has increased to £300k and you have remortgaged your house up to £200k. You then take out a £100k loan (@18% pa IR payable on demand) secured ( effectively a 2nd mortgage) against the value of your house. There is then a collapse in the housing mkt ( as happened in 2008) and property prices fall 30%. The owner of the second mortgage sees his business go bust, passes the loan onto creditors and you have the perfect storm. House is worth £210k (£300k down 30%) while the first mortgage from the bank is still £200k and the loan repayable on demand has increased to £150k. So you owe £350k and your house is worth £210k. Result? You are wiped out if the on demand loan is called by the new creditors and you lose your property. This is what happened to the Walkers.

I must admit that, when I first heard of TSP it was through my friend who read it and loved it, and it wasn't the 'becoming homeless' thing that raised my hackles (I did think it sounded odd, but because I didn't read the book and don't know anything about law, I assumed I was missing something). It was the 'diagnosed with terminal illness and decides to go on a long walk' that made me go "what the hell?"

I couldn't get my head around why someone who had been declared to have a progressive illness would head off to places where it might become extremely difficult should his illness progress to such a state that he became restricted in movement. Also didn't understand why they seemed to have absolutely zero family support when they were purporting to be so middle class.

And I didn't read the book, despite my friend being desperate for me to do so. I wouldn't go so far as to say I was suspicious as to its veracity, but I did think the Winns were behaving in a rather irresponsible manner, so they lost my sympathy before I even picked up a copy.

Considering an actual Sky documentary about the SP scandal has been made as these threads have gone on (is it December yet?) it can hardly be said that there is no public interest and any digression/chat (inevitable after months) has been friendly and yes, at times really supportive. I imagine MNHQ might wish more threads were the same, especially after some of the horror shows they had to moderate this past weekend.

I was never on them as more of a Malory Towers girl but think the old Chalet School threads, which had their own 'culture' as long running discussions do, had people dodging in with pointless "WTF" comments.

Many of the Christmas threads are very long running and supportive and friendly. I occasionally dip in and out for ideas and they remind me very much of this thread - tangents and side issues but otherwise very helpful.

Trying to understand the bit of TSP which describes the loss of the house, does this sequence of events fit with SW's story?

1. SW takes out a massive mortgage on the house to get a loan for a business investment (possibly property-related). But that business doesn't work out, leaving her with little equity in the house.

1. Later, SW decides to pay Mr Hemmings. Unable to borrow from the bank, she gets the loan from TW's relative (who asks for a fairly high rate of interest given all of the circumstances, including the limited amount of security avaiable in the form of the already heavily-mortgaged house). Unfortunately for SW, that loan gets transferred to new credtiors who choose to enforce, leading to the sale. All of the house proceeds go to the two sets of lenders.

1. If the investment had worked out as planned then SW would have been in a better position and might have been able to keep the house (perhaps paying Mr Hemmings from the returns on the investment). So from SW's perspective, the sequence of events is "simplified" (with a little "colour" added) into: "We invested and as a result of that (kindly) act our house ended up being (unfairly) repossessed (by meanies)."

Apologies if the above is obviously wrong. Or, for that matter, if it is obviously right and has already been discussed. I remember that SA's head has falllen off, but sometimes don't remember where my own is. I blame all the cider.

I'm not entirely sure what is "ridiculous" or what the alternative is to "chat threads." Isn't that what this platform is about? Does the poster only want serious debate or are they insinuating that there is no merit to yet another thread to continue discussion?

Given the documentary is going to air sometime in December (realistically before Christmas) as per the press release, I see no immediate end to these threads. I would argue this thread is a welcome way to keep the flame alive until the documentary airs. When that happens I would assume there will be much more to chat about!

The warmth and community feel of these threads reminds me of the comments in The Guardian's live Strictly blog on Saturday evenings. Keeeeep dancing!

As far as we know:

1. There was never any investment by Raymoth into a property portfolio or any other sort of business venture
2. The "investment" into Cooper's business venture was in fact a £100k loan at 18% IR pa from a distant relative (half uncle called Cooper in TSP and a childhood friend which was likely b-s) that SW secured to repay the loan to Martin Hemmings (£100k inc legal fees)
3. The £100k loan from Cooper was then passed on to creditors when his business went bust.The creditors then pursued the Walkers for repayment of the Cooper loan which had been passed on to them.
4. The Walkers tried to claim in court that the loan had come from Cooper's company and not from Cooper (thus would not have been passed on to other creditors when his business went bust) but.
5. The judge ruled that the loan was a personal loan from Cooper (who signed an affidavit to this effect in court) and thus the Walkers were liable to repay it to the new creditors.

Thus as far as we know, there was never any 'Investment into any business venture' by the Walkers that went wrong.

sorry not the loan but the loan taken out from Cooper to repay the £64K (+ legal fees) that had been stolen from Martin Hemmings.

Even if I have nothing to add I enjoy the comments and the jokes. And then I learn something new as here from @NaughtyNoodler (did you have a different name before? Please remind me 😬🤦‍♀️)

and am waiting, agog, for more revelations and discussion in the documentary. 🍿🍫🍺 (these are as close as I can find to cider and fudge. We will need plenty of both to watch it with.)

I always wonder why someone calls in just to harsh on everyone else having a nice time. Care to expand? Is it too off-topic in your view? December’s documentary too far away for us to discuss in November?

It’s maybe the modern equivalent at loudly complaining about people in order that they hear because you feel they need to know of your disdain. Except in that case you’re both in the same space, whereas you’d have to come into a thread to complain about it.

Ignore the drive-by scolding 🙃

It’s something I wonder too, @LetsBeSensible. I’ve never felt the need to barge into the Strictly conversation (as an example mentioned earlier) and make sneery remarks about what they’re discussing. It’s very odd behaviour. FWR coined the great phrase ‘drive by ploppers’ for posters who dip in to give them a wigging now and then which i think was mentioned here back when we were just in single figures, and it always makes me laugh.

Glumwashing is clearly not just confined to TSP world.

I suspect that RW is indeed a pathological liar.

Why? Not because I'm a psychiatrist or because of her nephew's allegations on LI in the wake of CH's Observer expose. Simply because of what she has said in TSP and then go on to claim in subsequent interviews.

All things being equal, you would expect somebody who has lied without expecting to being found out to possibly rescind some of those lies if the risk of being exposed increased in tandem with book sales and increased media exposure.

In the case of RW she has made some claims in TSP which she may not have originally have expected would have been exposed to the full glare of media attention. One such claim being that while walking the SWCP with Moth, she received £48 pw in working tax credits which occasionally fell to £30 ( Mousehole after the encounter at the Minack with the Iolanthe CAMDRAM players)

What is extraordinary is that in her two most recent interviews prior to CH's Observer expose, SW has decided to double down on those claims. In an interview with a German journalist in Toni Christie.de she claimed that in fact she and Moth had had to survive not on £48pw but £25 pw. She repeated the same claim in an interview on 30 May 2025 with Australian journalist Graham Cornes

omny.fm/shows/conversations-with-cornesy/conversations-with-cornesy-raynor-winn

Not only that, but in the same interview she claimed that in Bude, they had withdrawn £1.32 (all that was left in their bank a/c) to splurge on 6 pkts of noodles at 20p each which had to last them for 5 days!. In TSP they claimed that they initially withdrew £10 and then withdrew the remaining £1.32 which they spent on noodles.

These may appear like small details but they do seem to be symptomatic of a pathological liar who is incapable of seeing the risk of making such extraordinary claims and decides to double down on the level of mendacity rather than tactfully attempting to diminish such claims.

aka Catwith69lives/Whodareswinns and Izzywizzyletsgetbizzywinnthomas

Possibly. One “tell” is that the lie starts small and grows.
So only having £45 per week was originally quite shocking. It makes an impression on people, they’re interested, they eat it up. So she makes it more extreme - £30 per week, £25 per week, a tenner to last most of the week, £1.32 to last 5 days…she’s chasing the dopamine (just like a shopaholic or gambler) but they always go too far, it becomes unbelievable and they don’t seem to realise.

Edit to add - this is my opinion I haven’t actually researched it, if anyone has done please let me know! It fascinates me.

I don't think anything 'happened' to the Walkers. She stole a lot of money and had to repay the victim to avoid prosecution. That's how they lost the house and why there isn't a credible explanation in the book.

My question was more rhetorical really as we know it was a crime that led to losing the house. I was more interested in why so many uncritically accepted an explanation that made no sense.

Possibly because they believed that it was true as PRH had endorsed TSP and marketed it as "unflinchingly honest" and also because SW is such a brazen bare faced liar with absolutely no moral compass who has managed to con people into believing she was beyond reproach and her story must be true because she appeared to be a good person because she was representing a number of good causes inc homelessness and helping raise awareness of CBD through the PSPA..

She has no qualms about metronomically repeating these lies to anybody who interviews her - Rev Richard Coles, Kate Humble, Sophie Raworth, Michael Portillo, Martin Clunes & Mel Giedroyc, Alex Jones etc etc. And the interviewers supinely and unquestioningly accept every word that she tells them! So she carried on in the belief that she could continue to fool all of the people all of the time!.

Yes it fascinates me too. Thanks so much for this and @AzureStaffy and @NaughtyNoodler for setting out these questions and facts so clearly (and so early in the morning!).

This is an amazing, careful, succinct reviewing of this false narrative that has fooled so many. Not exactly chit-chat .....

It’s true of the health claims in interviews, too. If we disregard for a moment the rejigged timeline, TSP is very careful not to say TW was definitely or formally diagnosed with a specific condition by a consultant, or that he was given a specific prognosis — all of the doomy predictions and descriptions of symptoms worsening towards death are carefully put into SW’s subjective narrative voice, rather than said by any medical authority, and are thus technically explainable as the frightened catastrophising of a devoted spouse. Likewise the idea that walking ‘cures’ TW is tentative and subjective, and, again, could be defended as the subjective opinion of someone with no medical qualifications mistaking coming off a drug for a cure. (I mean, in a legal defence,)

But in interviews, SW regularly makes much more definitive claims. TW was ‘dying’, the walk ‘cured’ him etc.

And subsequent books, Landlines in particular, seem to double down on the boldness of the interview claims, rather than reflect the comparative caution of TSP.

What I do find myself wondering is what were the PRH legal team doing with LL? You can, I think, see the hand of the legal read in the careful way in which TW’s diagnosis and supposed improvement are handled in TSP, as well as in the atypically long disclaimer, but in LL, SW claims that a long walk shows objective proof of a medical miracle in turning ‘impaired’ pre-walk brain scans into post-walk healthy ones. Where was the legal team, so careful in the first book, first disclaimer etc, here?

I have no idea what the legal standing of media interviews etc promoting a book is. Possibly none. But I think if I were in the legal team at PRH, I’d have been having a word with whoever was handling publicity for SW, telling her to dial back the medical claims in interviews.

@WellSurely I have no idea what the legal standing of media interviews etc promoting a book is. Possibly none. But I think if I were in the legal team at PRH, I’d have been having a word with whoever was handling publicity for SW, telling her to dial back the medical claims in interviews.

Sally, early on, makes a point of saying how she hid away when she had to fulfil her contractual obligation to promote the book in person. I would have thought there would be input from Penguin on these occasions.

Obviously. we have then looked at a wide range of other interviews where I would think it is just up to her. She does contradict her own writings as well as develop and fabricate. I have noticed this progression and I have been quite shocked to see how it was all accepted, as @NaughtyNoodler says above, by vast quantities of supine interviewers. Some of these professionals have been considered 'proper' journalists - Sally Magnusson, Martha Kearney - as well as the celebrities like Rick Stein.

I think some of the answers to this lie in the unexpected success of the books. In a book which might be expected to only sell a few thousand - to dedicated walkers of SWCP, maybe the odd devotee of 'misery lit' - then over-egging the pudding without any proof can be explained away. It was the huge success of TSP that meant that SW HAD to stick to her claims. Otherwise, with a small book, she could have just said 'oh yes, I couldn't remember the exact figures so I just sort of skated over them' or 'Moth was ill, we weren't sure what with, so I went with what the consultants were mentioning.'

Once the book started to get a LOT of public notice, suddenly saying that you've fibbed a bit over some details becomes much harder. Particularly when people are picking up on the bits you've fibbed about and are saying that those bits are the parts that most resonated with them. You can't step back and say 'actually, I just made that stuff up' because too many people will shout betrayal.

I think SW is a victim largely of her own success. Success that was driven by the fibs, which now mean she can't step back from the fibs. Recursion in action.

And I don't think we should be too hard on Rev Richard et al for their obsequious-seeming questions. They were working with what they had at the time, probably didn't even write their own questions, and were really only there to give 'puff pieces' for the books, not to probe inconsistencies.

Yes, I’d agree that this is the most likely thing. That some lies, exaggerations and creative rearrangements in a book she didn’t expect to be a bestseller ended up being the things everyone was focusing enthusiastically on, and the reason her publishers and agent will have pushed the sequels because there was such an appetite for ‘what happened next? How is Moth?’.

Though while I get that she couldn’t, in TWS, say ‘Oh, possible misdiagnosis, and actually he’s ok’ or ‘The court case that lost us our house wasn’t exactly as I represented it’, I’m still surprised that she amplifies the medical claims in both TWS and LL. Claiming that brain scans show measurable, miraculously differences after the LL walk seems an obvious thing for the PRH legal team to focus on.

I wonder if part of it is also ‘Oh, the reviews and journalists saw TSP as a miraculous cure story, and made much bolder claims than I did, so maybe it’s OK and perfectly credible if I lean into those’?

I agree too with you @Vroomfondleswaistcoat — at a literary festival, I’d expect the interviewer/person she’s in conversation with to have read the book/s being promoted, in part because they know they will be fielding questions from an informed audience. But for a puff piece on The One Show or whatever, the interviewer will have been given a précis and questions by a researcher and won’t have read the book. Rick Stein’s production team will have approached them exactly as they do any other food/drink producers, with a slightly more involved backstory. But he certainly wouldn’t have read the books for the programme.