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!"

She might have been writing the book as the way to get 'famous' and pay back the loan? She does seem to have overinflated ideas of her own importance and deciding to write a bestseller as a way to keep the house (as the 'buy a book and enter a raffle' thing hadn't worked) would be exactly the sort of thing she would do.

I do think you are right about the overinflated ideas@Vroomfondleswaistcoat, I know that you have long thought that an earlier book must have been in the making, the raffle book was put out to the public when the danger of losing the property was very real, but Salray must have been working on it before then, the fact that they set up their own publishing company shows a confidence that most budding authors would not have. The raffle book didn't work out, but Salray was writing, it's very likely that she was already formulating TSP.

Thinking about the court case, Salray was doing her best to stiff the uncle, she wanted the debt to be his alone, if she could have got out of paying, leaving the uncle in debt she would have.

The more I think about this, as @Peladon points out the uncle needed that money himself and he certainly didn't want to be lumbered with the debt. And as @NaughtyNoodler says, why were they trying to make the uncle responsible when he got them out of the trouble they were in, probably saving Salray from a custodial sentence. Salray went into that court room, in her leather jacket, to try to make the uncle liable, he was lucky to have a good judge.

This review of TSP from 2019 is bang on the money imo!

The Salt Path, Raynor Winn – The Book Lovers' Sanctuary

It does.. apart from the pay back the loan part. I don't get the impression she likes parting with cash.

Remember the reality is not what is in TSP. The uncle actually passed on the debt to his associates. It was them who took SalRay to court. Her argument was that the loan was from the uncle's liquidated company and thus the uncle had no right to transfer the debt. Rather, she argued that the company liquidators owned the debt so the claimants had no claim. The thing is, if any of that were true, the liquidators would not be giving SalRay a "white shining piece of paper with the truth", they would send a representative to court to ensure their claim was represented. The fact is, the uncle signed a statement declaring the loan came from personal funds, not the company. In which case he had every right to transfer the debt to his associates in order to settle his own debts with them.

I do get very confused by what is truth and what is fiction @SimoArmo especially when it gets tangled together. So Salray was contesting liability for the debt, on the basis of where the funds for the original loan came from, saying that it came from the uncles business, but the uncle had signed a document to say it came from his personal funds, the judge upheld that claim, meaning the house was repossessed. What would have happened if the judge had ruled differently, that the loan came from the business, wouldn't the uncle have become liable under his business debts?

Isn't it just? So straightforwardly thinking as each aspect arises. I really appreciate the tackling of areas I don't know about, like the legal, and the common sense response to all number of silly things. Thanks.

Whoever wrote that review in Book Lover's Sanctuary was a very clear thinker and saw right through what seems to have been a mass hallucination.

@Freshsocks having had some experience of liquidators, I can assure you that had the loan come from the company the liquidators would have pursued it most vigorously. £100,000 owing to a bankrupt company, secured against a house would be their idea of heaven, and they would have been at the Walker’s door before you could say dead sheep.

If the uncle had a ltd company, then he wouldn't have been liable for the debt, it would have just been added to the outstanding monies owed, presumably meaning the uncles company would have had bigger liabilities when put into liquidation. So the uncle made a personal loan, he must have passed the loan on to his associates either in payment for money he already personally owed them, or sold the debt to them. He obviously didn't want the debt to be ruled as his companies debt, otherwise where was the money he received or other financial arrangement he had with his associates? This is why ultimately I feel Salray was trying to put the uncle in the financial difficulty in court, trying to make his company liable. It would not have been the end of it for the uncle, the liquidators would have had questions as to what happened financially with the associates.

I don't think the uncle wanted to be pursued by the liquidators either @Molecule if they thought the money had been loaned by the company they would have been pursuing it, they would be asking the uncle, where is the money from the debt you sold, or which company debts were settled against it. I agree that which ever way it went Salray would lose the house, but we know she tried to put the uncle in a difficult situation where he could have been asked for money by the liquidators, if the judge had decided the loan came from the company.

Despite Cooper baling her out with a £100k loan, Sal still seems to believe that he betrayed them by arguing that it was a personal loan and not a loan from the company. "It was if a hole had been cut through him; a trusting, honest, generous man, this betrayal by such a close friend had shaken him to the core". Is this what she really believes or just something to juice up the narrative and emotionally hook the reader in?

Another scene that looks so contrived in the film - with the dapper skipping down the steps and the exaggerated expressions. So many seem to have questioned this case. I would have thought basic lawyers for the film would have smelled a rat?

Maybe I was being a bit emotive in my earlier post when I said Salray was trying to stiff the uncle when she went into the court in her leather jacket, but the leather jacket seemed the most believable thing about her description. I don't know why @NaughtyNoodler but ultimately Salray was trying to do the uncle down, it didn't help their cause, so she was trying to cost him money by arguing that the company made the loan? I don't why a rat wasn't smelt by the legal team @BecalmedBrandy .

There are still some fervent Raymoth defenders out there who believe that CH is something akin to the devil incarnate!

I got the impression from the TSP that the judge was somewhat exasperated by the Walkers' delaying tactics in the case and in the end wasn't prepared to put up with anymore. The legal charge against the Walkers and who made it and who now held it if would have been pretty clear from all the documentation when the court action started - and I think the original article in the Observer showed in part the legal charge signed by TW. The comments on the judge in the TSP in my view go pretty near to defamation/contempt of court.

In terms of the libel/defamation angle, RW is quite clever insofar as she never actually names any of the people whom she attributes claims or statement in TSP that appear to be highly embellished or downright false. These include:

• the judge in the court case
• the neurologist who gave the CBD diagnosis
• the welsh speaking social care worker in Pwilheli
• the individuals in Lynton and Gorran Haven who described the Walkers as drunken tramps
• the person they sat next to at the Minack who claimed to be a son of one of the gardeners and claimed that Rowena Cade had spent most of her time sitting around while her staff did all the heavy construction work
• the public school 'beggar' in Glastonbury
• the young man they met in Clovelly who came up with a cock and bull story about the turkeys being shot in stead of pheasant
• the numerous people who apparently mistook Moth for SA
• the cafe owner at Mullion Cove
• Polly
• the camp site attendant at Treen
• the cast members of Iolanthe wo are encountered in the back of a van
• the tortoise walker at Pencarrow Head
• the American lady in search of John Le Carre's house

It's therefore going to be extremely difficult to pin any claim of libel on her imo.

I would believe the Observer about the loan having been made by Cooper rather than the Company - they will have seen all the details on the charge at the Land Registry ( and they reproduced this in the first article with the identity of Cooper redacted) and they will have seen details of the court case - and I daresay the Observer's lawyers will have double checked everything as well before going to print. I suspect the Judge gave judgement against the Walkers because the documented legal charge was pretty clear and valid - and SWs bit of paper was either another invention after the event on her part or just another time wasting device.

Apologies if this link has been poated before:
https://www.francisgilbert.co.uk/2025/07/thirteen-ways-of-looking-at-the-salt-path-after-the-truth-came-out/

I couldn't open this but it seems to be the chance to stay at the cottage. Perhaps you could pretend to be the Winn/Walkers or IzzyWynnThomas, cook on the powder blue Raeburn, and hide under the stairs a d wait for the beam of light to tell you what to do.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14896599/Salt-Path-house-Pwllheli-Wales-Airbnb-stay-178-night.html

PS: Perhaps aĺl of the Mumsnetters could have a convention there, and huddle under the stairs together.

Bearing in mind we are a charabanc full (and there are still some sitting on the roof), I don't think we'll all fit. We'd have to take it in turns, sitting in selected covens and chatting in hushed tones while the others waited outside, leafing through the 'library'.

I have no doubt that Sally's under-stairs area is dimensionally transcendental. Mere laws of space and time hold no power over her.

That would be an interesting convention @Peladon :) I was concerned about space too @Vroomfondleswaistcoat, but you make it sound positively TARDIS like @Peladon :)

I'm still thinking about this repossession, don't read any further if you have had enough of this :) @DreamyHiker said Salray was trying to string out proceedings, maybe just trying to buy time, which does seem the most likely explanation.
If that is the case, then it's nothing to see here, just Salray trying to delay the inevitable. Could the judge have made any other decision? If the paperwork was clear that the loan was a personal one that had been passed on to a third party, then arguing that it was from the company would not have made any difference to the repossession, the liquidators would have persued the debt as @Molecule pointed out, faster than you can say dead sheep :)

So was Salray just trying to buy time? or was she trying to call into question the business ethics of the uncle and raise questions into his personal finances? with Salray saying the loan came from his company, when he was saying it was a personal loan. Surely if all the paperwork was clear about how the loan originated then Salray claiming it was from the company, when the uncle has made a statement that the loan was personal, is calling the uncle a liar, what was the purpose? did she hope to discredit him and call into question the original loan somehow? or was it just a delaying tactic?