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

I wonder if pathological liars like her, actually start believing themselves.

They’ve spun so much out of it haven’t they? Someone mentioned Arvon tutorships. Things like that xlcouod have gone to more deserving and authentic writers. It’s a tough gig, writing. But yep she gobbled those things up too

Oh, I’d assume that the research project was equally fictional.

Or that someone in the medical field had said ‘How interesting’ when told about the Miraculous Salt Path cure and politely agreed that there might be something worth investigating there.

But for all we know, that person could have been a nephrologist or a cancer researcher they met at a party.

Just watching now and she found 'Grant'! No massage took place and they had not heard of Simon Armitage, he was not happy about the portrayal.

Really??? 😀

I'd be puzzled how someone with such average writing skills could be offered an Arvon gig, to be honest.

We need a jawdrop emoji, we really do

Oh please please please let us know about the doco. I know you need to concentrate now, but once you’ve finished watching?

I think they like to have some tutors with a high profile, and tbh, the calibre of their writing is probably not that relevant in the scheme of things for a short course. Even teaching skills aren’t necessarily all that relevant for what would probably be a series of walks to take notes with SW talking about experiential writing with all your senses etc. I’m assuming that the actual tutoring (reading the students’ work) would be done by another writer.

I mean, it’s not that you don’t get some serious, committed writers doing Arvon courses, but friends who’ve tutored on them also say a surprising number of people have never read any of the tutors’ work, and have just rocked up thinking ‘I’ve always thought I had a book in me.’

I'm going to try to watch this afternoon (OK, I should be wrapping the present mountain but) Between us we'll get everything.

Sigh. Yes, I think you're probably right and Arvon would be thinking of the profile rather than the ability - which is almost even sadder when you think about how much money these courses can cost. That they can charge a lot of money for someone to be 'tutored' by someone whose writing ability is average and whose teaching ability is unproven, just because they've been publicly popular and been on TV a lot, does not say wonderful things about them, to be honest.

Thank you SOOOO much

😱😲🙊🙀😧🫨😬

@Uricon2 will these do?

I gather their admin can be difficult to deal with (at least, I assume there are different admin for the different houses — I’ve certainly heard of some being uncooperative and inflexible), and that it doesn’t pay particularly well for a week living in, running workshops, offering individual sessions where you have read students’ work, giving readings etc at night and doing communal cooking. Especially if you’re travelling from a distance — some of the houses are pretty remote.

Moniack Mhor is no longer Arvon affiliated, but it’s a hell of a long way from anywhere. You have to get yourself to Inverness, and it’s still a longish drive from there.

It may be that there isn’t a queue of writers wanting to teach for them?

Anyway, back to the documentary. Is ‘Grant’ at least a pink-faced bald wine merchant with a gorgeous wife, nanny and PA, even if no massage took place and TW did not recite ‘The boy stood on the burning deck’ to people who believed him to be SA? Is nothing true??

Does anyone have a link to where I can read Chloe’s latest article in the Observer? It’s hidden behind a paywall

I can’t get over how she bludgeons her critics into submission by emotionally recounting all the things she supposedly has to do with Tim on a daily basis, or rather “Moth”. There is no proof of any of it other than she says it’s true. You have to buy her books to read about it. You have to read about her reactions to his “illness”, her sobbing and anger and fist shaking melodrama. How much of that material was just sourced from reading blogs and articles written by other people and what she did was imagine how her reactions would be, such as a method actor might submerse themselves into a role by living it in their mind first, then acting it out for the cameras. I’m talking about actors, but writers of fiction who draw on life experiences (themselves and other people’s) do something similar? So now I’m thinking that she has no right to shout at her critics and especially CH’s findings that they have taken away “hope” because what she’s written isn’t even real.

@SimoArmo posted a working link at 9.58 AM yesterday. @Aussiebornandbred copied and pasted the whole thing in a series of posts a little before that.

Dont Look For The Money Ive Taken It All Raynor Winns Confession That She Stole From Her Family - SMRY

On the Arvon coirses, to be fair one thing SW does know about is how to publish a best-selling book. How much of that knowledge she would actually share with her students, and whether her students would be able to follow her model, is a different matter.

I agree @HatStickBoots . Her reactions are not based on real events (being a carer, living with the terminal diagnosis of a loved one, nay even being homeless and starving as purported) so they ring like a cracked bell, especially when coupled with her love of melodrama and tin ear for dialogue. She is cosplaying her own life.

My argument against that (sorry, I've just found ANOTHER thing to be annoyed about, you're going to have to rub me down with a cool fudge bar in a minute), is that NOBODY knows how to write a bestseller. Being a best seller is in the lap of the Gods, it is the readers who make your book best selling. All she can do is describe how she writes what she writes, her methods etc and from then on it's down to the marketing department and hoping that you've caught the zeitgeist.

She might be able to talk generally about her own writing, but I really don't think she was in any position to 'teach' anything.

Rant over. Pass the cider.

I agree. My take is I think the "just jealous" argument is really only something that comes from people who have no capacity to understand any alternative, the principle one being that many of us in the world care about truth, integrity, fairness and the idea people are harmed by others' actions (i.e theft, giving false hope) - actions that have seen those committing them become heroes and ambassadors and reap the rewards of success.

Speaking out against them is not jealousy. It is morality. But many simply cannot see beyond the "be kind" mantra.

Side note: journalism isn’t “hidden behind a paywall” as some kind of sneaky attempt to do you out of reading material. Journalism - like that done by Chloe Hadjimatheou - costs money. If you can, please pay for it. Or it will disappear. Lots of people on this thread bemoan that interviewers haven’t challenged the story before - that’s because (one reason anyway) they were not investigative journalists. Investigative journalism is really bloody expensive so if you value it, pay for it.

oh and another side note: couple of people questioning why no response from her agent. Wouldn’t be surprised if said agent dropped her a while ago anyway.

Pretty much says this at the end of the documentary.

Her favourite mode appears to be declaiming ‘You’re wrong!’ to authority figures or those with power — she tells both the judge and consultant they’re wrong multiple times at the start of TSP, and I think TW tells ‘Cooper’s barrister he’s got it wrong too. And obviously Chloe H is wrong, and any readers who doubt her are wrong.

Can you imagine her in the police station when she was arrested for the Hemmings theft? ‘You’re so WRONG!’

Like they don’t hear that one a lot.