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

Whoever said this wasn’t a first offence was right!

Moth having ‘one of his good days’ when it suited & Jason Isaacs being so utterly, utterly taken in…

Speechless.

If today's report is true, can you imagine how Mr Hemmings would have felt if he had read HNTDDD and was under threat of being sued if he said anything?

Perhaps similar to how TW's parents would have felt when having to live in the barn?

It makes me wonder who else might be emboldened to come forward following this piece and the documentary. I've always liked Elton John's comment when he successfully sued I think the Sun. "You can call me [xyz slurs and insults] but you musn't tell lies about me".

Salray hasn't and won't sue because these are not lies.

Can you link to this second statement?

Was the first book a forgery too? I wonder if the narrative includes stealing from family too?

I think there is quite a lot of evidence that they did some of the walk. There are documented accounts of people who met them on the walk and also a fair number of photos on Sal's IG feed which correspond to events described in TSP

The question is more how much of the walk did they do, was it split into 2-3 week stints, did it occur in 2013-14 as claimed in TSP or over a much longer period (2013-2016?)?

Clearly the majority of incidents described in TSP appear to have either been fabricated or highly embellished. However, there is a kernel of truth in some of the incidents (ie meeting Tadge at the Treen campsite, the Australians at the FAC etc)

I think there are also some big question marks about how impoverished they actually were, how much "back up" they had from family members en route and whether the entire walk was planned well in advance and then the sections that were walked were stitched together into the far fetched yarn that appears in TSP.

Hopefully Anna and Dave & Julie from Up North have the gumption to come forward and tell the truth.

Hwaet! Thank you dear comrades for keeping these threads going so that I could scoot straight back here after reading the Observer article and retrieving my jaw from the floor, to say "what the actual...?!" Genuinely never imagined anything this bad.

@NaughtyNoodler : "i think there are also some big question marks about how impoverished they actually were."

On RW's website, the description of TSP is more or less a copy and paste of the blurb on Penguin's website, but there are a few nips and tucks. In particular, Penguin's blurb says that the couple had almost no money for food or shelter, but (unless I read too quickly) that bit seems to be missing from the version currently on RW's website.

I don't doubt they did at least some of the SWCP walk, just in a manner completely different to what is presented in the book, homeless, virtually penniless, starving (which never made sense) and at the mercy of the elements and cruel bystanders. It's often been suggested that there was a lot of intentionality about it all, rather than it starting ingenuously as 'an aide memoir for Moth' and I think that is incredibly likely now.

Shysters.

A friend of mine got a producer credit for a TV show based on her novel— in practice, what it appears to have meant is that the screenplay writer occasionally emailed her questions about characters etc when he was adapting it. She was only on set as a visitor a couple of times, and certainly didn’t have anything to do with actually producing the film. I’m assuming that SW getting a producer credit covered stuff like meeting the actors and being available to advise the production on stuff they’d supposedly lived through.

It’s just on her ‘Raynor Winn’ website.

https://www.raynorwinn.co.uk/statement-december

I think they were pretty well cushioned. Also if stuff wasn’t nailed down…They’re ultimately untrustworthy & dishonest.

As for the ‘walk’ from article ‘they weren’t homeless & did walking holidays like most people do’.

I think they did bits of it too but what if it really was only the odd WEEK at different times? It might explain all the perceived ‘recoiling’ & ‘tramps’ comments - Salray was unused to the gig.

If I wanted to cosplay a hiker & was on a ruse I’d make damn sure to get chatty & visible on one of my longer stints. It might explain the holes, the pristine map, the going the ‘wrong’ way round & more…

There is nearly 5 years between Tim and his son surfing and the publication of TSP. Lots of time for some jaunts and checking what other authors have said about walking/the coast path.

Interesting that she does not give anything except Lauren to contact on either of her statements. Have the agency/publisher finally accepted that their cash cow has dried up?

Do we have any psychotherapists/ psychologists on here who have some insights into why SW started this kind of behaviour? Not that any reasons would excuse it, but I just wonder what possesses someone to be so flagrantly dishonest and heartless.

from a totally amateur perspective, I get the feeling SW was full of insecurities and had a massive chip on her shoulder from an early age…. Jealousy of more successful family members? Of better looking girls? Better educated women? Where does the huge sense of entitlement come from? Why didn’t she do what any normal person would do if they hit a bad patch and get a full time job? Or downsize to a cheaper house?

It’s like she never considered this things, doing an honest days work was beneath them, they were too special… It seems to me that insecurities coupled with a massive sense of entitlement underlie a lot of SW’s issues

@BegazingBrandy : "Interesting that she does not give anything except Lauren to contact on either* *of her statements."

More precisely, she gives a Gmail account with the word "Lauren" in it. We don't know whether that address belongs to someone called Lauren.

Didn't realise conversation about this was still happening. Is anything changed since the initial thing?

A gmail account too. I mean, lots of us including me have them but not for professional purposes and it is also widely used by scammers (so no change there then)

Yes

I think there’s quite a bit of evidence for this. If they only did the odd week here and there would the public necessarily take a dim view? This IS after all, what a relative/s say happened.

I’d not put much past this brazen pair!

I think they wanted to make £ & keep Salray from prosecution so concocted a brill idea at kitchen table. Go to a specialist & then ham up ‘symptoms’ to get some receipts etc.

’And then lo a sunbeam settled on a book in a packing crate as bailiffs banged…on walking’

’They’ll never believe it!’ ‘Wanna bet!?’…

’I might even scoop a cash prize for a first book!’ ‘Ho ho’…

Then…make a splash at odd cafe…Chat to a woman who had vanity & temerity to highlight hair - ‘tad ah’!!

As @Peladon said earlier, her original statement originally had her agent’s contact details and an email address for a PRH publicity person. Both of their names have now vanished.

She felt insecure with Moth I think too. How to make him love her & her worthy of his attention.

I am still struck by how many taken in by his magnetism & charisma. Jason Isaacs was in utter thrall & awe.

It provides background. Sally/ Raynor claims that she and Moth are victims. Of the system. Of Fate. Of mean people on the path. She takes no accountability. The narrative of the book is scaffolded by the terrible twist of Fortune which led to them being wrongly evicted from their beloved forever home.. Followed by the diagnosis of CBD, which she claims in many print interviews and podcast interviews IS diagnosed that same week. Chloe’s article today substantiates the previous doubts and gives context. It becomes clear this book was a long time in the making and is a cynical manipulation of the reader’s trust and emotions . Readers bought the book in good faith that it was unflinchingly honest. They have also been robbed and the article today makes it clear they are the latest in a long line.

The concept of TSP as an 'aide memoir' is impossible to believe for the following reasons:

• in all likelihood the walk took place in small chunks between Aug 2013 and Sept 2016

• the image on the Penguin website of the PD SWCP guidebook with margin comments suggests they were written by Moth. The writing appears to be the same as his signature on the Cooper loan document published by CH in July

• Sal claims to have started writing TSP in September 2016 (possibly after they had finished walking the last chunk of the Poole-Plymouth stretch)

• on 5 May 2017 she sent an email to BI offering to write an article for the magazine

• TSP was first published on 22 March 2018

• Moth's birthday is in July. From the above chronology it would have been impossible for Sal to have written the first 40 pages and given it to him as a birthday present. It probably wasn't finished in July 2016 and they may well have still been walking the SWCP while by March 2017 Sal claims to have finished the first draft of LSB. It was re-edited several months later and largely completed by the time her article appeared in the BI in July 2017.

• Sal mentions in TSP that she packed a notebook. The photo of Grant's orchard seems to show an object that looks very like a notebook. I wouldn't be surprised if Sal was taking notes during the walk and that these formed the basis of the book, possibly supplemented by Moth's margin comments. But as none of TSP is couched as an aide memoire (because most of the events are fabricated!) , it seems highly unlikely that it was ever conceived as anything other than a follow up to HNTDDD.

I wonder who Lauren is.

By that I don't mean I believe she's a real person who exists.

Is it Sally's email, or her daughter's? Not sure who would actually be talking to them now.

Maybe she's set it up to see what support is out there and if it's worth trying to continue with the grift.

Maybe take up the invitation and send her an email? I hope she doesn't "pour vitriol" over you (if she replies at all).