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

Forgot to add link if you want to see originals...https://healthunlocked.com/cure-parkinsons/posts/150551462/raynor-winn

I’m genuinely taken aback by the new allegations. Stealing from vulnerable, not-particularly-well-off parents and PIL, as well as having embezzled large sums from her employer, as well as using largely fictional illnesses as a way to try to wriggle out of the consequences, as well as subsequently selling a substantially untrue account of their recent lives as ‘unflinchingly honest’, doubling down when doubt was cast on its verity, paints SW as a much more pathologically greedy, dishonest, opportunistic and criminal individual.

Imagine that meeting between SW’s family and TW’s family that The Observer was present at. Discovering what they possibly had never known before, that both sets of parents had been preyed on financially.

I note that both families seem to see SW as the prime mover. That she was apparently the one, not TW, who had the Walker parents bank details that allowed her to empty their account, seemingly into TW’s.

Agreed and I also take my hat off to the many diligent contributors on here for their outstanding research and tenacity.

I note that the Sky Documentary is firstly being aired at 2:00 am tomorrow morning. It’s on ‘record’.

Could Salray be added to the small number of authors who have had awards removed, It must be a pretty unusual situation for an author to have lied in order to seem eligible for a literary award, that they have then been successful in obtaining. I know people have had them removed for political reasons, or refused them, but how many have been found out to have lied in order to obtain one?

Is that on Now @Gingefringe ?

Damn, Raynor Winn must be the unluckiest woman in the world! Everyone is out to get her, from her old boss's widow to her own niece. And there doesn't seem to be any motive for all these people to lie about her - they're all just doing it for the hell of it. How very strange.

Another post of SW’s instagram.

“Infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it in for me” - SalRay, probably.

Goodness gracious, great balls of fire! I turn my back and three hundred posts in a day appear! Not quite the heady early days of filling a thread a day, but I had a pass the smelling salts moment when I logged in and saw how much catching up I'd got to do! I think if I start on the fudge and cider now for medicinal purposes, I might just have enough about me to cope with the inevitable post-documentary wave.

Thank you everyone for your posts and links.

Who'd have thunk it? You couldn't make it up.

Just off for a restorative snooze on the back seat of the charabanc. At least without his head Our Simon can't keep me awake with his snoring.

note that both families seem to see SW as the prime mover. That she was apparently the one, not TW, who had the Walker parents bank details that allowed her to empty their account, seemingly into TW’s.

but into his account- not hers and not a joint account. I wonder if he’s the spender. Either way he’s as in it as she was, because he didn’t return it.

The documentary IS AVAILABLE NOW on Now TV! I will watch it this evening at 7:45ish

Double post

Salt Path author's astonishing 'confession letter' revealed in new doc

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15383421/Salt-Path-Raynor-Winn-confession-letter-money-brain-condition.html

Salt Path author denies claims she stole money from her family

https://www.thetimes.com/article/daee57b5-82a6-46d9-8681-9166609682f9?shareToken=9ac6b2b2de520698f9115753644b71ec

Bing Videos

Thanks for the link:

Winn said on Sunday about the controversy around her account: “As with most people’s lives, there will always be someone willing to criticise you. That’s part of life.”

Blimey.

Sally is a serial thief and fraudster.

Timothy is a fantasist who has a history of making up serious illnesses.

How did they get away with so much for so long?

“Criticise”? You didn’t leave the toilet seat up Sally or forget to take the rubbish out. You funded your lifestyle by bleeding dry both sets of parents, took a prize you knew you hadn’t earned and you’ve made fools out of everybody, including doctors and terminally ill people!!! 🤬

But why would family be jealous? All of them? Both families?

I mean, I've had a fair bit of publishing success (although I've earned nowhere near what Sal has) and all my family is nothing but delighted for me (and enjoy a little bit of reflected fame/glory sometimes when I do something high profile). Pleading that 'family are only saying nasty things because they are jealous of my extreme success' sounds more like the defence of a narcissist or pathological liar/sociopath than a true defence. I mean, why WOULD they be jealous? Surely they are reaping the benefits of having a hugely successful author as part of the family? (Sarcastic laugh).

The 90-minute documentary adds up to an utterly damning indictment of the Walkers, who became the darlings of the TV chat show circuit after The Salt Path was published to huge acclaim.
.
The programme charts Hadjimatheou's investigation as, with dogged persistence and an undisguised disgust for the Walkers' lies, she tracks down one witness after another to dismantle their story.

Thanks @IslandsAround … just read that now… I’m shocked at the way she continues to deny. I can’t believe her claims that the Observer is responsible for driving a “wedge” between her and her family!! 😅 seriously??
To keep their families quiet for so long, they used emotional manipulation to control them.

As explained in the article, the 'wedge' wss driven through the family by Sal's theft from Tim's parents. This led to no further visits after 2008 to the French property in the village de Dropt next door to Tim's brother's pigeonnier. The 'wedge' has existed for 17 years.

I haven’t posted for many threads, but have been quietly reading along :) Am also shocked at the revelations in the latest article.

Just a couple of things; someone mentioned criminal record, and how does SW have one…. Well, (certainly in England, and I would assume in Wales, but maybe it is different?), i suspect (but don’t quote me!) “criminal record” typically refers to a record kept about you on the Police National Computer (PNC). I think this is not just convictions, but also cautions, and even just records of arrests (even if nothing happens after the arrest). So if SW was arrested, there is likely to be a PNC record of that.

Also - I read the recent Raynor Winn statement, and it struck me that the section where she said that family could still speak to her privately about it, was possibly an offer that she is willing to privately repay / compensate for the money that it is alleged that she took from relatives - I imagine that this would be the same sort of deal that she made with Martin Hemings (did she (or her ‘fancy London lawyer’?) ask him to drop charges, and not disclose it to anyone, through the NDA?). Maybe she is hoping that if she can smooth things with a substantial sum, then she can get her relatives to fade into the background, or to do an about-turn and say that they have now ‘found’ the ‘lost’ money, so they ‘must have been mistaken’…

Knowing now that they did not do their epic walk in the way that they claimed and knowing even more about their personalities and the ease at which they manipulate people, it is clear that TSP is the ultimate culmination of every technique in the gas lighter’s handbook.