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'm sure CH will have already found out by asking the RSL. Will be interesting to know more

SW is churning out what the masses seem to want. None of this is apparently affecting sales. If PRH thinks publishing OWH is commercially viable ( and it looks as if it will be) they will do it. Clearly they are standing by her. They believe in the core truths ie homelessness was caused by the calling in of a loan. It is irrelevant to PRH that the loan was originally taken to repay the embezzlement. What matters to them is that the calling in of said loan made them homeless. End of. They also clearly believe in Moth's diagnosis. What we might think about behaviours beyond those core things seems to be of no real concern.

Don’t the relatives say effectively they were never homeless?

Her actions at mother’s deathbed & sentimentality over a paperback she found make me feel queasy. She’d been siphoning off ££.

Surely she’d have given to family but then again when did the work fraud come to light. Given the plot - awks?

My first real post was about the RSL CB prize, Thread 9. Others did check the criteria then and it is the same.

True but I'd be interested to know the definition of homelessness. They will say they were made homeless when they lost their house no matter where they temporarily bunked down or for how long.

Thank you. So, to be crystal clear, she didn’t meet the criteria. Proving that, problematic.

It is, and has as far as I am aware always been, a prize for a first published book. Even if a previous book was self published it still counted as published as far as the CB prize was concerned. So TSP was ineligible, and if Sal signed documentation to the effect that it was her first book, then surely that is fraud?

Do you have an idea where the info comes from?

I googled a definition of homelessness. Homelessness includes sofa surfing or staying with relatives or friends. It is referred to as ' hidden homelessness'. So legally as far as PRH is concerned they were technically homeless.

How can they be seen as homeless? They lost their house in June 2013, stayed with Moth's brother for a couple of weeks before setting off on a short walk (2-4 weeks) from Aug/Sept 2013 possibly taking a break to stay with their son in Newquay. They reached LE in Sept 2013, got a lift back to Bristol to stay with Moth's sister and then spent the next 18 months living in some luxury at Polly's. How on earth can that be classified as them being homeless? Oh yes, they also owned a property in France!

The publisher won't care one jot.. When the story first broke, SP sold lots more copies because people who hadn't read it wanted to find out what it was all about, I'm betting that it will be up there on sales numbers again this week..

We've been round in circles on this already. The article wuotes family members as saying they were living with them and going in occasional walking breaks.

Yes but I'm looking at it solely from a PRH angle. They will say that they were technically homeless as per definition of homelessness in the UK.

I guess it would be. If so, might explain why CH hasn't mentioned it yet as that would be a story in itself and perhaps distract from the family confession letter story. Could be gearing up for yet another exposé given the brief mention of HNTDDD at end of latest piece which could be a taster to prime readers?

I think they make the point that they had no money at all to pay for much, including temporary accommodation? So they were not in same boat as genuine homeless as they had power for that to be otherwise? And if they only did the odd stint in a tent it’s all a lie anyway.

Part of the story hinges on them having to withdraw less than a pound, etc…

This may have been discussed in my absence from the threads, in which case I apologise. However, in the off chance that it wasn't:

Two or three weeks ago, there was a programme on R4 about the Scottish tea scandal. Did anyone hear it? I was struck by the parallels with the Walkers. The programme looked at the reasons that people believed the lies, and whose responsibility it should have been to double check the claims made by the Scottish tea-grower (I'm probably not going to surprise anyone by saying he was importing the tea, not growing it!)

The conclusions were, firstly, that it was a good story and people wanted to believe it, so they didn't look too deeply at the claims he made. Secondly, the programme concluded that it was the buyers' job to do due diligence on the product that they were buying. In this instance they were talking about the tea buyers for Claridges, the Ritz etc, but the corollary with PRH was clear to me.

Fraudster made £550,000 selling fake 'Scottish-grown tea' - BBC News share.google/sQjLbwq6qmcw9VaKi

Indeed. Homelessness is not a choice. They had options.

A muti millionaire then could be technically ‘homeless’ if he sold his mansion flat, banked the ££ & fancied the odd eccentric night on a Cornish cliff pre checking in at Ritz? :)

My original post:

TheBrandyPath · 20/07/2025 16:01
Thanks for the warm welcome OpenThatWindow
and everyone else
I have anchored, rowed to shore so now down to business. Re: the Izzy Wyn-Thomas book. Surely the inaugural winner of the prize below was Ms Winn for Salt.
RSL Christopher Bland Prize
It is awarded annually to an author of a fiction or non-fiction book who was first published when aged 50 or over. The prize is valued at £10,000 and was launched in September 2018.
If she wrote the 2012 published book that would disqualify her?
------
When we looked into it, on the website, it gives the criteria for the current year. I do remember someone going into it very thoroughly and looking at if it was the same for 2018.

It all seems so long ago ... in another guise you were looking at Newquay soup kitchen at that time!

Thanks for this. Reminds me of ‘Peckham Spring’. Del nearly got away with that.

To my mind this is almost as bad as the canal couple. Perhaps not quite as elaborate or extensive but fraud is fraud? And IF they really hammed up/made up illness & so gave others false hope…

There is a strict legal definition of homelessness in the UK: Homeless means you have no available accommodation in the UK or elsewhere which you can: occupy by virtue of a legal ‘interest’ (e.g. you are a freeholder, leaseholder, or tenant) or a court order, or occupy under an express or implied licence.

My understanding is that if you are staying with friends of family you are deemed to have an implied licence to live there and are thus not homeless.

As far as i can see the discussion ended with uncertainty. Someone checked current eligibility but no one knew if that applied in 2018.

You are forensic. How about this article:

Christopher Bland writing prize for the over 50s | An interview with Gillian Slovo | Age UK

Apologies if this has already been posted. I’ve been at work and am struggling to keep
up.

www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/the-salt-path-sky-documentary-raynor-winn-letter-b2884120.html