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

So re: PRH, they were never homeless.

Since Aug sales of TSP have fallen to below 1,500 copies a week. I don't for a minute think that PRH believe the Walker's account of being homeless or suffering from CBD when the walk is supposed to have happened (2013/14 vs first tentative CBS diagnosis in June 2015 after the walk is supposed to have finished and Moth is studying at Plymouth Uni). I just think that they don't care whether it's based on a pack of lies. Cynically they have paid for OWH which SW has already written and they are probably pretty confident that it will do reasonably well even after the scandal surrounding TSP. They will publish OWH and be damned!

Annoyingly it doesn't mention anything about prior self-published works. I did look into this a while ago but never found anything conclusive, even in PR from RSL in 2018. Later PR does mention self published authors are ineligible but no mention in 2018. So it's an open question.

https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/tv/2025/12/the-salt-path-is-a-classic-of-the-true-grift-genre

Yes I found this link from you, it does say debut novelist:

I wonder how the other authors and judges feel.
https://rsliterature.org/11171-2/

Evening all. I'm now getting ads mid-thread for Court of Mist and Fury and An Inspector Calls! Oh, if only there was a long-armed knock coming on the door of WWW Mansions.

I just get ads for Louboutin "Fannylove"(!) pumps. Their targeting is well off as my bunion ensures I spend 95% of my waking hours in Skechers!

Ah the coughing major! ‘Cough cough, NO’! Hilarious!

Bernie Madoff and Epstein were both superficially charming and got others who would sing their praises to do most of their work for them.

He certainly didn't get the message not to outshine the bride on her wedding day.

I've just watched the documentary and I think it will spread the truth further afield.
Although I'm an ardent follower of these threads, I've never read the books (and will never subject myself to them or the film). I have also not watched interviews with them, or seen the Rick Stein programme etc etc.
The way the programme interspersed interviews with truth-tellers, and footage of Raymoth/audio of her reading TSP worked well. The two clearly don't match up and that comes across well.
And, seeing the eyewitnesses, family, and others affected in the flesh really does bring the scandal to life.
I found two things particularly poignant/gut-wrenching.
Firstly the interview with the CBD sufferer. Not only seeing his slower movement and facial expression contrasted with Moth's. But also hearing his emotions, and him having wondered if he should have been fighting the illness.
Secondly the meeting with the family. The niece of Tim who's chosen not to hide her identity in tears, hearing/reading Sally admitting to stealing from Moth's parents (the niece's grandparents). And hearing the thoughts and discussions of the others who have chosen to keep their identity quiet. How they had to support the elderly parents and how Raymoth have never shown any remorse. "They never say sorry.". Heart-breaking.
Even if Penguin carry on regardless, even if some people keep their heads in the sand, this will be making a difference.
I'm sure CH will keep pulling the threads of the other things and more will come out later.

I know SW was fighting with her legal team to block the documentary right up the last minute. It’s incredibly damning and convincingly rebuts the “but all writers change things / exercise dramatic licence ” argument.

not sure there was time for much else in the documentary. I have always felt that Landlines may be an even richer source for dishonesty than the TSP.

Thank you to all who have summarised the doc!
I won’t rehash what has already been said more eloquently than I would have put it, I shall just leave these two points.

1. any other armchair psychologists among us note that it was said Salray’s mother adored her, and put her on a pedestal…!?
2. what about the working tax credit fraud

off to dip some fudge into a cup of warmed cider for my evening snack.

I suspect you’re right.

that'll be the death bed she went to twice.

Yep, didn’t pick that up in the books (the adoration from Mum) - a very different narrative.

Yes, her mother is depicted in TWS as old-fashioned, stern, disapproving and terribly disappointed SW didn’t bag a rich farmer rather than a wastrel ecowarrior.

Rather than adoringly fond and devastated when her favourite daughter empties her bank account. Which is terribly sad. As is her death being regarded as primarily a way of thinking about TW’s fictitious imminent demise in TWS.

I suppose there’s no particular reason to believe anything SW says, anywhere. Maybe TW was never an ecowarrior. Maybe he was a Loadsamoney who got his kicks cutting down trees and blasting his own personal hairspray hole in the ozone layer.

An adoring parent is a common ingredient in some problematic personality developments, more so than a neglectful/disintrested/distant one.

Yes, Meghan M springs to mind.

Just throwing a speculative theory into the salty wind - could Sal have fed Tim a line all these years that her parents were disapproving of him and she had to maintain the ruse for the books...perhaps as a way to "keep" him? For the thrill of eloping to Skye? For the romance of defiance and of loving each other in the face of adversity?

There is no way he could ever know because if they were nice to his face, she could easily convince him how they felt differently behind closed doors, and how she was poor Sal but not when in the arms of Tim.

I now suspect that the flamboyant yet feckless Tim wasn’t good enough for dear clever, artistic, farmhand SalRay, who was destined for Greater Things than being tied to a kitchen sink with some kids in a town, hoping he doesn’t waste all his wages on waistcoats.

Yes, that tea scammer was fascinating @Mauvish1 - and fooled everyone. They all believed he must be genuine because surely someone else must have done the due diligence….

I've just watched the doc and while it didn’t say a massive amount more than the story in the paper, it was compelling hearing it all laid out. I have to admit to laughing incredulously at finding that 'Grant' was Warren Evans. Half of arty London had a wooden Warren Evans bed in the 80s and 90s and I do believe DH and I were among them, iirc. Still remember the ads that were a permanent fixture in Time Out and City Limits.

I knew the name sounded familiar!!

https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/salt-path-documentary-raynor-winn-appalling-behaviour-4110307?srsltid=AfmBOoriJtyPZUrUn8WeRpBJ0fe5N3y-kcN4XY2krXxBbsWL2MlULNOG