Thread 21 : To feel disappointed - and now disgusted too - after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film?

[DisappointedReader]

NO POSTS PLEASE UNTIL THREAD 20 IS FULL

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?

Thread 20: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5454438-thread-20-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 5 months we have done amazingly well together for 20 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. Our Cardboard Mascot Our Simon has had his head stuck back on and is wearing a very fetching tinsel boa. The charabanc is bedecked with fairy lights and very well stocked up. May the seasonal fudge and mulled cider be with you one and all. 🎅🌲🎁❄️🎄

These threads are the gifts that keep on giving:
New:

• Salt Path: A Very British Scandal, available from Monday 15th December Sky Documentaries and NOW TV
• ‘Don’t look for the money. I’ve taken it all’: Salt Path author Raynor Winn’s ‘confession’ that she stole from her family | The Observer

Up and coming:

• 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
• Podcast series from The Observer's award-winning Investigative Journalist Chloe Hadjimatheou
• BBC Documentary (NB Not involving Our Chloe)

*MNHQ correcting above 'Documentary' to 'Podcast' at request of author

NO POSTS PLEASE UNTIL THREAD 20 IS FULL

https://www.bbc.co.uk/culture/article/20251223-the-salt-path-and-2025s-most-scandalous-books

Another set of comments (some supportive some not, but overall less erudite than these threads). Someone suggests that "Moth" looks like Mark Bonnar.

https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=115457.0

In case of interest:
https://lizardyoga.wordpress.com/2025/07/11/the-salt-path-the-true-story/

In case of interest, a glowing review. The comments have been closed (because the writer said that the story had some way to run and he didn't want to come to a judgment), but those comments which were made before closure are largely unsupportive.

https://www.markhorrell.com/blog/2024/why-the-salt-path-is-one-of-the-great-books-about-long-distance-hiking/

Rather ironic if not a long distance hike at all but the odd week here & there under canvas put together after absorbing a lot of other books about hikes.

Completely agree @PinkPanther57 . In fact the author of that piece admires everything that was false, apart from the SWCP itself. Reading that, once again I’m filled with dismay at all the downright lies that have urged people with the disease that “Moth” was said to have had, to get out there and cure themselves like he did. Walker says she never intended that. Well she should have googled a bit more about CBD then, shouldn’t she and not given false hope to people. Dangerous hope. She did paint themselves as a couple of saintly, humble, down to earth honest folk. What a laugh. The sooner the writer of this piece wakes up, the better.

Nipping on to the charabanc to wish all of you a very merry, sloe gin, cider and fudge filled Christmas. Have a wonderful day. x

Merry Christmas to one and all.

Take it easy on the festive liqueurs, everyone!🎄

Merry Christmas to all on the charabanc! Have a wonderful day! 🌲🎄🌲

Merry Christmas to one and all, have a lovely day, mince pies and other sweetmeats today, lots of pickle for Salray's porky pies tomorrow :)🎄🌲🎄

Christmas Day swim in Bude. Big community hugs.

Christmas greetings to all from North Devon not a million miles away from Hartland Point and Clovelly!

Happy Christmas everyone.

Got to tell you this.

DH- "I think there's that film about those people you're always going on about up, Gillian Andersons in it. Do you want to watch it tonight?

Me- SILENCE

Honestly, I wouldn't be able to digest my turkey!

And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging high prices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.
(from The Journey of the Magi, T S Eliot)

A very merry Christmas to you all - thank you all for the interest, the discussions, the information and the support. You have kept my spirits up - thank you so much 🌟

Merry Christmas to you all! I’ve lurked on these amazing threads from the beginning and then saw this skit/comment from Private Eye on Facebook today and thought of you all immediately!

fb.watch/Ed9yKwCGv_/?

That is such a wonderful poem @BemusingBrandy .

I am (literally) having a small sloe gin and thinking that a series of threads that started with us coming together to vent our ire about the SWCP Two and their antic deceptions has turned into one of the most friendly and supportive 'communities' on MN and I would posit any forum you could name. Funny too. Damn funny.

Thanks to all of you (())

Agree with all above - I’ve probably spent far too much time on the charabanc over the past 6 months and have learned enough that I could go on Mastermind with “The Deception of The Salt Path” as my specialist subject - but what a lovely, interesting bunch of people! ❤️ Happy Christmas one and all!

Merry Christmas fellow charabanc travellers, from within sight of the Lleyn peninsula!

Mind how you go now, steady on if you switch from cider and fudge to fizz and mince pies! Enjoy the day(s) and sending you wishes for a very good new year ✨

Yesterday, amongst gifts of fudge and clotted cream (both of which I will have to go easy on - in order to lower my blood pressure without taking medication!) was a non-fiction paperback entitled "Between the Chalk and the Sea" by Gail Simmons - a pilgrim's path along the south coast. Looks like I'm in for a very interesting read. I'll report back a.s.a.p. (It has been endorsed by Raynor Winn, who "loved it"!)
A few years before being gifted with "TSP" I was presented with "On Silbury Hill" by Adam Thorpe, and for my birthday last September "Edgeland" by Sasha Swire - a slow walk west - i.e. a travelogue of the Northern leg of the SWCP, from Minehead (my birthplace) to Lands End.
I've not noted any mention of these latter two publications via these threads or anywhere else, as clearly, unlike TSP, they didn't make it to become best sellers.
Best wishes to you all for 2026 and also a big "thank you" for being so kind to me as an elderly grandfather so a non-typical mumsnetter!

That looks balmy. Not many people braved the sea yesterday where we live in south Cornwall, the waves were huge, it was freezing and a bit too risky this year.

I think quite a few braved the unremitting murk of the North Sea here yesterday but conditions were rather different @HatStickBoots . The seas on the Western coast are so very much more lovely, though. I remember the awed reactions of a party of small (East Anglian) grandchildren we took on holiday to Cornwall when they saw it for the first time "It's beautiful! It's green.. and blue...not grey!"

Yes, the colours here are amazing. We’ve got a bitter ENE wind at the moment and today has been completely overcast making the sea on our part of the coast a clear pale green. It has calmed down a lot since yesterday and a few people were swimming and having a sauna.

I’ve avoided a swim this year although I usually love it. We went to Pwllheli beach today and it was a lovely sunset.

A sign we saw elsewhere talked about the Welsh Coast Path, the longest in Britain apparently, over 800 miles of continuous path. I wonder why the WWs haven’t trodden that path yet!?