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

Yes but wouldn't a confession letter more likely be handwritten or in an email. Who types stuff nowadays?

Typed could be a printout. Also, plausible deniability which is harder if in your handwriting.

Salt Path writer denies ‘confessing’ she stole from her family https://share.google/8DiPMbJQnNJNHqi6z

Could easily mean typed on a PC and then printed off- I know that I find awkward letters better typed so that I can continually rephrase things as I go.

Chloe will have gone through legal channels, but I see (and would believe) that SalRay will take up residence in the large river in Egypt known as D’Nile.

The corroboration of 3-4 family members from both sides is useful. However SalRay can just claim she didn’t write that email. Perhaps she was hacked, perhaps she has an evil stalker who commits these awful things and leaves her to take the blame, maybe she has an evil twin. But it wasn’t her writing the email, you can’t prove it.

Assuming the email is true, I was interested that it confessed to giving the mother forged bank statements for 18 months. That is not just pre-meditated but sustained deception.

Well, quite. Interestingly, Salray hints at jealousy of her success & beef with wider family who can, to paraphrase, ‘take it up with her privately’ if they have a problem.

Is that not elder abuse?

Is Ray the evil twin? Dissociative Personality Disorder as a mitigating circumstance?

It absolutely is elder abuse. We have elder abuse, benefits fraud, fraudulent cheques, I see no reason why such people would be expected to be “truthful” to medics, Drs and consultants.

I think they’ve got some honest medical receipts along the way. It’s interesting she doubles down on Moth’s diagnosis in latest statement. Salray obviously feels particularly vulnerable here.

The thing is, if Sal has indeed embezzled £67k from the Hemmings, £25K from her mother and another £25K from Tim's parents and clearly fabricated/embellished a lot of the events described in TSP, then why might they not have 'engineered' the CBS diagnosis with the "top dog" neurologist from the Walton Centre in Liverpool (who conveniently had a house In Pwilheli) either to obtain enhanced disability payments or for more nefarious purposes....

The CBS diagnosis was retrofitted into the TSP narrative, so its surely not stretching the boundaries of credibility to suspect that Raymoth were the Machiavellian players in this drama and maybe the neurologist was a tad naive and believed their story hook line and sinker....

Absolutely, it also prevented SalRay being prosecuted & righteous anger from their parents & those they’d swindled along the way.

I do feel today's article is not as fully compelling as the original and would be easy for die-hard fans to shrug off as family rows. I find it strange that SW would write down a confession of theft and embezzlement because the side we have seen of her is one of explaining how she is in the right and people have just got the wrong end of the stick. The need to stop relatives going to the police is, of course, her aim but to do so by admitting the theft in writing seems to be pinning a lot on family loyalty (which she does not appear to know the meaning of). And like others, I cannot see what the family gains from counterfeiting the letters.

Two likes and one share. Pretty sad really for such a groundbreaking expose. Sign of the times I guess..

I suspect a lot lot more is going to emerge in the coming days and weeks. It ain't over til the fat lady sings as the old saying goes.

Chloe H has apparently spoken to relatives on both sides, x4 plus, who fully back this up. Some may say they are after £ & surely if letter not legitimate SalRay will sue?

A pp asked upthread about the holiday rental guests in the barn. I always wondered why none had come forward with a story to tell. But if their parents were staying in the barn, there couldn’t have been any holiday renters? I’m confused about how Sally had access to the parents’ bank account under the guise of it being easier for the business. In what way?

You mention Machiavellian @NaughtyNoodler , thank you. I’ve thought this for a long time but many here weren’t convinced. Has that changed now?

In terms of TSP narrative what for me jumped out of today's Observer article was the following:

Anne put them up for close to 18 months. This covers much of the period the couple claimed to be destitute and camping on the coastal path.

What this suggests to me is that they did very little walking between 17 Sept 2013 (when their son Tristram ferried them back from Newquay to Bristol) and the summer of 2015 (when they met the Parsons at the Fat Apples Cafe, Porthallow, walking west). This suggests very strongly that the section from Poole to Portsmouth was walked sometime in 2016 and that the notion that they walked the entire 630 miles of the SWCP between Aug 2013 and Sept 2014 is complete b-s.

They weren't homeless. Moth wasn't diagnosed with CBD in 2013/14. They didn't walk the 630 miles of the SWCP in 2013/14.

It seems abundantly clear that whatever its literary merits as a work of fiction, as an unflinchingly honest travel memoir, TSP is based on nothing more than a shameless pack of lies.

I can just imagine the sort of language she used on their own families to convince them that Moth was dying; the exact same melodramatic, histrionic bullcrap that’s spread over every page of her memoirs.

Poole to Plymouth!

Agree. The documentary will be much harder to ignore and I think will be picked up more widely.

The media today were (quite properly) concentrating on the terrible and tragic event on Bondi beach but without something else exceptionalhappening, the run up to Christmas can be quite quiet newswise.

I'm shocked that this was as bad as it appears to be, but also slightly... glad? I was worried that this was all going to be shrugged off as 'my truth', a bit of 'mistakes were made' and a pinch of 'changed a few events for narrative purposes.' Things are so very much worse that there really is no way out of this for Sal. She can complain about 'family has it in for her' all she wants (but why WOULD they, with no reason? Money? Any nice genuine person would already have seen their families all right and set for life), but I think her only hope now is to take off for somewhere abroad and just stay there.

Because now even more people are going to feel taken in, and if there's one thing people really HATE, it's being made to feel stupid.

Pushing it further it’s poss they came up with this brill idea & did only isolated odd week here & there. Some in a B&B too. Making sure they were very visible & had good, recount worthy anecdotes & vignettes on the way.

As for the shares, how long has the Observer not been free to read? Last time I looked at it, I didn’t have to subscribe to see the articles.

Documentary is by Sky. Logically you'd expect CH to pop up tmrw on Sky breakfast to publicise it all. Who knows where else. Richard Madeley and Susannah Reid on Good Morning Britain? R4?

Also, the Observer’s legal team will have scrutinised everything. They won’t publish if there is any room for doubt.