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

Dunn uses the expression 'magical thinking' and I had been pondering this. Are we, as readers, like children indulging in magical thinking that sufferers of incurable disease can get better just by our own efforts without science and medicine? Do we want to read about innocent victims who triumph over adversity? Nothing wrong with that but we still need our rational and logical thinking to ask 'could this really happen?' Some obviously did as seen on here and other places. Others accepted the narrative. Unlikely events can happen and be overcome but some don't stand up to scrutiny. It is a shame as Dunn writes, that those who do have truthful and incredible stories to tell might find it harder to tell them because of this.

SW is obsessed with keeping things ‘private’, isn’t she?

She offered, via her lawyers, to ‘guide [CH] on the truth’ of TSP, on the grounds that CH agreed that the disclosures would never be made public, as explained in her first statement. Now in her second statement, she says that family members ‘have always been able to share their concerns privately, and they still can’.

I suppose she was hoping all along that the two families’ disinclination to drag messy, grubby family business out into the open would keep them from going to the media, even after the first story broke.

I note as a pp also said, that there’s no mention of ongoing legal advice or potential legal action in her new statement.

Yet surely, if, as she suggests, the handwritten letters and typed confession ‘Anne’ says she was given by SW’s sister on her deathbed, are forgeries (I mean, they must be, mustn’t they, if they purport to be from SW and admit to wrongdoing she says she didn’t commit? Added to which she says she ‘did not write the letter saying I did’, by which she presumably means the typed document?), surely there’s an obvious legal way ahead in seeking to prove that these letters are not authentic? Handwriting comparisons by experts with authenticated samples of SW’s writing etc, as one obvious starting point.

Though perhaps the typewriter on which the typed confession was written might have found itself at the bottom of the sea, like Rebekah Vardy’s assistant’s phone in the Wagatha Christie trial…

The creditors say that, prior to The Observer’s initial investigation, they had been unable to locate the Walkers because they were using the aliases Raynor and Moth Winn, and have since requested and received payment for the loan.

There will be a provable money trail for this and as someone said upthread, who would stump up cash they didn't owe/had already been repaid? I suppose the answer is the sort of people who repay 60 odd K they didn't embezzle.

Responsible journalists are also held to higher standards for truth and evidence than liars and thieves, and where their subjects are litigious they will have their evidence crawled all over by experienced lawyers before going to print. In contrast note the speed and broad brush nature of the denials.

Presumably paid them back after the statement that all creditors had been paid. So yet another lie?

From The Bookseller after the initial expose

A spokesperson for the publisher told The Bookseller: “Penguin (Michael Joseph) published The Salt Path in 2018 and, like many readers, we were moved and inspired by Raynor’s story and its message of hope.

“Penguin undertook all the necessary pre-publication due diligence, including a contract with an author warranty about factual accuracy, and a legal read, as is standard with most works of non-fiction. Prior to the Observer enquiry, we had not received any concerns about the book’s content.”

The last sentence means someone is lying and I can't think of any reason why the family members would. I can think of plenty why PRH wouldn't admit "Well, yes we were contacted by a family member informing us of major discrepancies including criminality but we decided to ignore it".

I wonder whether Sal, her agent and PRH are betting that these latest revelations will just blow over; that not many people will read the Observer article or watch the Sky documentary and, this time, there won't be articles about the scandal in other newspapers. The response on social media to CH's article today has been pretty non existent apart of course from here on MN.

Come Spring 2026 it will be business as usual and PRH will crank up the publicity for OWH, albeit with restricted/heavily curated appearances by Sal!

This is wild!

I agree that they’re both as bad as each other. And looking at the wedding costumes, I still think, as I have all along, that Tim has very expensive tastes and doesn’t want to do a hard day’s graft. Sally is equally lazy and entitled in her thinking: there’s a Marian Keyes character, Rachel, who’s an addict and relates the story of stealing money from her friends, justifying it to herself by a process: it’s their fault that I have to steal it because they refused to lend it me, and anyway they can afford it. I suspect some kind of thought process along those lines. I also suspect the money just went on subsidising them; they clearly have champagne tastes and weren’t prepared to work for it.

They’re like the Ingram-Moore couple, convinced of their own righteousness and entitlement to the things they want to have, by fair means or foul. It’s their fault that Observer’s fault for not letting Sally guide them on the truth in private; it’s probably the families’ and the Hemmings’ fault for having money.

They really are a rotten pair. There is very little that’s as cold-blooded and malicious as stealing from your own family and friends, then making yourself out to be a victim and using fictional ill health to avoid facing any consequences. Using people’s trust and affection against them. It’s really disgusting. I hope they’re both prosecuted- and if their children are aware, and have knowingly benefited, then they’re accessories to it and should also be made to face consequences.

How awful that these serial scammers and thieves have never faced justice and instead are being feted and praised by the great and famous. And their latest vehicle to make money, Penguin, is complicit in the deception as it keeps the cash coming in.

The comment from the naval architect family member about them being pathological liars was made very soon after the first Observer story broke, I think possibly even that day. Whatever the family have disclosed about Raymoth already existed and they didn't sit down (2 different groups linked by one marriage) to plot a dastardly scheme complete with forged letters in the light of Chloe's article. They just didn't, no matter what nonsense Salray comes out with.

I have to say that I am quite shocked. What she did to the Hemmings was awful but defrauding and gaslighting your own elderly parents (both sets) and putting them in penury is off the scale. They are truly appalling people and fully deserve every bit of opprobrium and disgrace that I hope is coming their way.

In her second statement she says nothing about that first book in Wales not being written by her, so I think we can safely say she knows she can't deny it.

I can't actually believe she wrote about herself embezzling the money. That truly is staggering.

WRT never buying a house - how could they? The checks you have to go through would have flagged up warnings all over. And potentially alerted their creditors.

I hate that they have millions of pounds and they will get to keep it.

Also that some people will still believe in them.

Typical Salray that the first work of fiction novel seems closer to reality than the second unflinchingly honest memoir.

I'd like to hear whether anyone who rented the barn had any memorable experiences there.

She really did get rich selling lies. I was shocked to hear from Chloe that SalRay produced the Salt Path film.

Nikki Walket, who works with TW's nephew, has posted on Linkedin that she loves today's Observer article.

Alleged theft from the family is irrelevant when this thread is about TSP claims. It doesn't serve any purpose other than to perhaps reinforce the probability of the embezzlement from her employer ( which is relevant to TSP claims of how they became homeless). But I do think the living with niece/ going for a few hiking trips is very interesting..and was of course rumbled on here!

Well, I assume that just means ‘got an executive producer credit’, which doesn’t necessarily mean more than ‘got a namecheck’.

But isn’t this thread about being disappointed to read the Observer expose about SalRay and TimMoth - not necessarily just about the TSP claims - but the whole thing? I think it’s very relevant.

No, she certainly wasn’t an exec producer!

She has a Co-producer credit as well as a writing credit, as per IMDb

Did we see her appear on Kate Humble’s Coastal Britain?

I am just catching up & shocked.

So, they never did the ‘walk’ really. All the Gillian Anderson etc praising Moth’s courage despite foot dragging etc. Just a couple of walking hols or so? Really?!

Was Moth’s illness exaggerated of even made up to keep Salray out of prison??

The first book! Sounds like Chloe found a copy! Salray must have been buying up copies.

Surely the book award needs to be rescinded.

Well, the alleged family thefts apparently took place at around the same time as the Hemmings embezzlement, the letters provide additional corroboration that SW stole money from the Hemmingses, was arrested, has a police record, and knows she won’t escape prison this time if either family goes to the police.

And that it wasn’t a matter of simply embezzling from an employer as a bookkeeper noticing somewhat informal accounting norms in a family firm and exploiting them — she was also stealing from immediate family members to the point where TW’s parents couldn’t pay their own rent and had to move in with the DS and DIL who’d stolen from them, and her mother was struggling to cover food and heating. She was well aware that this was no ‘victimless crime’.

And of course it explains the failure to mention their French property, and the reason they let it fall into ruin.

And in fact TSP has a precursor, the supposedly fictional HNTDDD, which offers, ironically, a more honest account of the circumstances preceding TSP than the supposedly unflinchingly honest memoir.

I am still reeling from the description of the HNTDDD storyline, complete with embezzlement from an employer (rather than 'mistakes being made') Really wasn't expecting that. It seems an utterly foolhardy, shameless plotline under the circumstances, although I suppose she thought she'd have been protected by her famous NDA had it become a success (which it never would if the page we've all read is anything to go by)

This is a discussion about whether TSP (including the apparent miracle cure of walking away CBD) is true, and if so to what extent. SW says that it is.

Whether SW should be believed goes to the heart of the issue. And The Observer story, if true, is bang on point.

I saw her on that, found it somehow slightly uncomfortable.