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

Thank you! I will certainly do that...

My 2 cents to add to all your fantastic insights into SalMoth’s relationship is that I think he manipulates her by being ‘ill’. I do think, having watched her expression while describing the doctor’s analysis of Tim’s condition, that she believed at that time he was diagnosed with whatever it was, and was devastated. She jumped to worst case scenario and he let her.

Nah, I don't believe that for a second. He was never ill, and isn't in any way ill now. His family say he was always pretending to have this or that illness, so they never believed it from the start. It was yet another of his lies. Why on earth would Sally believe it if no one else did when she was in on all this crap.

I was always uncomfortable with Sally's interview on The Grief Channel. I think this may be another group of people hurt by the disclosures.

It did not enter my mind she would steal all the money from her very elderly mother. I was unhappy with her dark rant against her mother in TSP and the way the date of her death was said to be in various years - to suit Sally's narrative like everything else.

Bing Videos

I think he is ill with some sort of neurological condition.. There are a number of people who have met him at literary events who have attested to his shaky handwriting (although there is zero evidence of that from his margin comments in the PD SWCP guide! in 2014/5) as well as neighbours who lived at Penpol who attested to the fact that he had a shambling gait and possibly had Parkinsons.

CBD/CBS, terminal diagnosis with 2 years max to live and a life saving 630 mile walk on the SWCP? That is another story entirely. It seems highly likely that CBS was misdiagnosed back in 2015. Was it engineered by Raymoth? Who knows.

I still think today's expose was tabloid 'toxic family' tittle tattle. It bears no relevance to the disputed events in TSP. It's important to stick to the relevant facts.

If he had anything it would have been detailed in the medical letters. Which it wasn't. All it suggested was something mild and atypical.

I think all the consultants had to go on was his testimony.

One of Tim's consultants seems to have been as in thrawl to him as Jason Isaacs was.

He lied his arse off to Isaacs, so a consultant would be small fry.

I think he's a practised conman.

Of course it's relevant. One of their family members states that the couple was living with her during the time they were supposedly on a long walk.

The one thing that has puzzled me about the story is this: they are clearly grifters who would rather steal money from their employer and their own elderly parents than do an honest day’s work. So where did they get the energy and commitment to write a book? Writing a book is hard work, and there is very little likelihood, if you’re not a known name, that you’ll get it published, and an even smaller chance that it will become a bestseller. It seems amazing that Sally actually found the discipline to write a book, let alone one that had bestseller potential.

Unless it's alcoholism that he's keeping hidden. Which might give quite a few of the symptoms he has been reported as having. (I don't seriously consider that Tim is a closet alcoholic, but there are quite a few conditions that can give shaky hands and difficulty walking and not all of them are worthy of panic stations).

It reiterates the fact that she has a history of deception.
It makes it clear The Salt Path is not her first foray into the world of publishing.
It reveals that Sally and Tim were never homeless.
It shows that the walk was done piecemeal and in order to curate a narrative.
It makes clear that ‘Polly’ was misrepresented
In short, the article does a sterling job in terms of laying out the true narrative. Thorough, forensic and the result of months of investigation. This is the antithesis of tabloid ‘tattle’.
One can only wonder what the documentary will reveal.

And I think that fact that she was previously published and therefore ineligible for the Christopher Bland prize for a first book is extremely relevant...

From all the other facts and contexts - I think they're as guilty as each other. Both manipulative, both liars, and they knew what they were doing in getting a diagnosis by exaggerating symptoms.

Then at some point retrofitted the illness into the made-up narrative of TSP.

But you already acknowledged that the report is relevant, because it asserts that the couple were actually staying with their family at the relevant time, and went for some hiking breaks like anyone else, not living destitute on a path.

The report also said that the family members' experience was that TW's health was not concerning.

Both of those points clearly go to the heart of the question of whether (or to what extent) TSP is true.

And the report also goes to the broader, fundamental question of how much weight should be given to SW's versions of events and other sources.

SalRay did say that she wrote odd bits in her childhood and probably wrote diaries, thoughts and observations as an adult. With Timoth's contributions, the book could be a cobbling together of her scribblings plus travel writers that she was influenced by. Then there's the classical reference to The Odyssey - blind man, tortoise etc; Simon Armitage and Seamus Heaney. Penguin Random House would have helped put it together.

Such as she copped out of bagging sheep fleeces after 2 days vs persevering from dawn to dusk for 2 months and earning £1500 which set them on their way for the 2nd leg of TSP...

or more likely sitting on their backsides doing sweet FA and claiming PiP

Who knew them from Penpol? I don’t remember reading this.

a personal contact!

Scammers gonna scam. The book is a scam. The whole thing is a scam.

I think we on here knew that but how truly dreadful they are was not known until Chloe published today.

Interesting. Your contact must be one of the few folk who saw them in ‘the wild’ during the time at the cider farm!

Yes, you are quite right. I should have made myself clearer. I am not at all sure that the alleged stealing from family adds much weight. Also something about the style of the confession feels off. Btw I thought she was meant not to have a criminal record after the embezzlement went without charges after the NDA and repayment so where is this confession of a criminal record coming from? I think the staying with Polly and going for some camping trips is pretty interesting as I said before.

What I still find difficult to fathom is what all this stolen money was spent on. £67K from the Hemmings, £25K from Sal's mother, £25K from Tim's parents. That's £117K in 2008 money. Kids weren't privately educated; Sal wasn't into fashion; Moth wasn't into fast cars; they didn't go off on expensive foreign holidays; as far as we know they didn't have gambling issues, weren't into drugs and alcohol. So what was all the stolen money spent on?

I think it does add weight. Why? If, apart from the Hemmings, they also stole from Sal's mother and Moth's parents it suggests that she/they were serious kleptomaniacs. This in turn surely suggests that Sal had personality issues (if she was as claimed hearing voices) which in turn surely adds weight to the theory that she was a psychopathic liar which in turn casts doubt on the entire sequence of events described in TSP.

French property and powder blue AGA type range.
Not doing any real work to earn to support your family?

I just want to hold space for those groups who we have not heard from, whose voices have been drowned out by SalRay and her book, when she had no right, no right to do so at all

CBD community
Disabled community
Homeless community
Menopause community
SWCP walkers