Thread 20 : 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?

Thread 19: www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5437058-thread-19-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 and ploppers 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 five months we have done amazingly well together for 19 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.

Up and coming:

• Salt Path: A Very British Scandal, Monday 15th December 9pm Sky Documentaries and NOW
• Sunday Papers Live, The Real Salt Path with Chloe Hadjimatheou, Sunday 7th December (see image below for tickets and further details)
• Observer Newsroom: The Real Salt Path Story, Thursday 8th January 2026 6.30-7.30pm. More information and to book via this link observer.co.uk/our-events/the-real-salt-path-story

Perhaps a guest appearance on hospital wards from Father ChristMoth and SW in her glum elf costume, gambolling, telling cracker jokes, and suggesting all you need is a nice long walk to get you back on your feet….

Oh thank you all! The grotto (or perhaps grotty given who is in charge) is brilliant. Disgruntled elf Salray and @Groundsel "Father Christmoth" must win the thread today.

Having problems with new beta blockers but feel better after reading here and a good laugh.

@BegazingBrandy fingers crossed all test results OK and glad they are being thorough.

I thought I had sleep problems! 😂

Try to ask them questions. OK, they won't tell the truth.

On the contrary, I think I trust them more 🙂

Referring back to “lying low” in LL, SW writes that the doctors and neurologists contacted them suggesting reasons why his health improved after the SWCP walk. What were the reasons given in our discussion threads which led us to think they had never told the doctors about their walk? (I’ve forgotten.) Here it seems they must have talked about it and Moth’s miraculous recovery but instead of the doctors, neurologists and physiotherapists telling them that they have misdiagnosed Moth, they are apparently scratching around for reasons why his DAT scan lit up like Piccadilly Circus at Christmas time as though there are no rational, scientific answers.

And did they ever readmit Moth for further testing? Or did they just take Sal and Tim's word for it that he was 'cured' or at least improved? Because anyone can say 'Oh yes, since I went on this cake-and-chocolate diet all my symptoms have resolved!' and surely the onus is then on the medical establishment not to just shrug and mutter 'must be a miracle cure then'.

@HatStickBoots What were the reasons given in our discussion threads which led us to think they had never told the doctors about their walk? (I’ve forgotten.)

Wasn't it this:
In the statement, the 2015 letter, goes into detail about his legs, his walking, but no mention of an epic 630 mile walk.

That's right @BegazingBrandy, no mention in the 2015 consultation, Tim's first consultation with a specialist consultant and they don't mention the walk, how can the consultant have made a correct diagnosis when he was not given all of the history, a 630 mile walk is not something you just forget, to mention.

"He is now much more conscious of his movements as he walks and has to step very deliberately unless he is walking on very even ground." (25/06/2015)

According to TSP they had walked on extremely uneven ground the year before.

Indeed. And we must also consider the timeline here...we now know that they did more strenuous walking after the June 2015 consultation (re: Australians at Fat Apples 08 Aug 2015). Yet I think we can conclude with a degree of confidence that they make no mention of this walking plan to the consultant, given they do tell him about Tim's planned studies.

So we have two glaring omissions in regard to long distance walking. What is also missing is their destitute state...one would think it pertinent to one's health assessment to declare that you are homeless living on meagre food rations.

You are right @SimoArmo, they didn't mention further walking or having been homeless and having to endure such hardship and near starvation.

The documentary is only days away, we have been discussing this for months @SimoArmo, and you just brought up some new and very pertinent questions, I hope the documentary makers are as inquiring as you are.

Yet days or a couple of weeks later they are back on the path! Why not mention the plan of walking to the consultant? Even if they somehow only decided to return to the path after the appointment, how did they think this was suitable given how conscious he needed to be for walking even on level ground? This return to the path is a big red flag imo. It suggests they wilfully exaggerated Tim's symptoms to the Dr, for what end we can only surmise.

I'm afraid that doctors and their diagnoses are like everything else in Walker World - expendable, exploitable and disrespected. Like friendly employers that have you round for Christmas, people that offer you a place to stay, etc.

These are extracts from TSP to show that Sally, with no medical training at all, always knows more. So sad for those given false hope:

something awful is going to fall out of your smug, tight lips

The judge had got it wrong, so why not the doctor?

I hated the doctor, sitting on the edge of his desk delivering his diagnosis as if he was presenting a gift.

He’d changed, there was no question, he’d changed and according to the doctors that wasn’t possible. CBD is a one-way ticket.

I couldn’t accept it; we were beating it, or if not beating it then at least keeping it at bay. No, the doctor should have said walk every day, do weight-bearing exercise, fight it, keep your mind active, look ahead, fight it. Then if it beats you, when it beats you, you’ll know you gave it everything, you didn’t lie down in front of the train.

Choux I have sent you a PM.
I couldn't see how to do that or access PMs on the app but did it on the laptop.

Thanks @BegazingBrandy . Another to add is this from something she wrote for PSPA. I don't have the link to hand (and not sure if it was on internet archive). I copied the text into a document so that's how I have it.

“Establishing clear standards of care would also be a relief. We tended to lean more on the internet for answers than we did healthcare professionals. Often when we asked questions, we were met with blank faces which was heart-breaking."

Darn those po-faced health care professionals doing their jobs with their knowledge and experience!

Is anyone else getting inundated with MN adverts for the Salt Path popping up all the time?

I couldn’t accept it; we were beating it, or if not beating it then at least keeping it at bay. No, the doctor should have said walk every day, do weight-bearing exercise, fight it, keep your mind active, look ahead, fight it. Then if it beats you, when it beats you, you’ll know you gave it everything, you didn’t lie down in front of the train.

It sounds like she wants the consultant to be a cross between Joe Wicks, Angelo Dundee (who trained Muhammad Ali) and Mr Motivator rather than a neurologist.

Don't worry Salray, you know everything, just get on.

Thanks @BegazingBrandy , I hadn't read that particular gem.

I’m in awe of the excellent observations on here. And thank heavens for Chloe H for her first rate journalism in exposing the criminality and deception in the first place.

Seeing the scale of all this: the lies, the arrogant dismissal of other people and the disgusting way Raynor dripped in details to give false hope to genuine sufferers - it beggars belief to think if all this had stayed swept under the carpet, Raynor would have published her 4th (or 5th!) book and would be still be callously spreading her lies to audiences across the country.

It really does my head in. The judge wasn’t wrong. The doctors weren’t wrong. Her books want us to believe that he has CBD and that it went into remission due to the miracle of LDW and an extremely bad and very low calorie diet. All this supposed anger at the doctors is just fiction. There was no anger. It’s there once again to twist the reader’s already stretched heart strings. I firmly believe that every emotion in these books is made up for effect.

Everything is designed to ramp up their victimhood. Duped by a life long friend, defenseless due to government cuts to legal aid, unheard by an unfair judge, suddenly diagnosed with terminal illness by a smug doctor, allowed to stay at Moth's brothers only while they are away on holiday, no employment prospects due to having worked so hard creating the barn for holiday business, the unsympathetic council housing officer, surviving on noodles, chips and hairy wine gums, the house insurance direct debit, the shame of losing the kids' family home, the loss of parenthood, called tramps and drunks by people on the street, the recoiling of dogs and children, the mean spirited people who ask for money in exchange for water, the desperation of having to steal fudge and nights at campsites, and the complete lack of any hardship stories coming from other people they meet because that might downplay their own victimhood.

What did I miss? I am sure there must be more.

Yes @HatStickBoots and @SimoArmo the emotional manipulation is rife, that is a good list @SimoArmo, you could also add all the angst of being a middle aged woman, Salray played on that quite heavily throughout.

you could add to that being treated like slave labour while at Polly's, having to work long hours wrapping sheep fleeces, not being able to find any other work in the area despite all her work experience,not being able to take family holidays like other people when they had their noses to the grindstone doing up the barn at Pen-y-maes

Thanks for the round up @SimoArmo - I have to add my previously quoted favourite. How anyone could have found this "a lovely read" escapes me.

Here the Bah Humbug! grotto elf blames the attitude of a village, victim of a natural disaster, for .... closing on time.

We got into Boscastle at five minutes to five, and nearly made it into an outdoor shop to buy a new bootlace, but the door shut before Moth’s foot could stop it. He knotted the broken lace together and walked up the street. This village is famous, or infamous, for the floods of 2004, which washed away shops, cars and people, leaving the village devastated. I had thought it would be a friendly, welcoming place, happy to be rebuilt and back in business. But instead it was shut, everyone rushing away to put sandbags out just in case. .. so we carried on ....

She had the nerve to give a talk in Boscastle a few years ago and claim that it was she who had the broken bootlace and that she did manage to get a replacement in the outdoor shop in Boscastle. She has zero shame,

I remember being annoyed last time that excerpt was posted! As though all the retail workers (with their own families to care for and lives to carry on) should be keeping the shops open just for Sal and Tim to buy some £1.50 boot laces! Nobody else matters except for Sal and Tim. Stupendous lack of empathy.