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]

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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

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I'm here with the smelling salts @TonstantWeader, in case anyone is having an attack of the vapours, we don't have a velvet chaise lounge, we will just have to lay them on the bench seat at the back :)

I hope the pooing correspondent's tests are all good tomorrow 👍

It would be great if PRH would just bin OWH, but how do they stand legally, do they have to publish it if Salray wants them to? I remember talk of contracts a while back.

And this is why we need the laugh reaction back!

I think I need a nice bracing 630 mile walk now. Or to switch my beta blockers for some (lots) more oxycodone. Or something. 😂

@TonstantWeader got everything crossed for the Canine Correspondent.

Delicately approaching the erm scene in the film alluded to by @BemusingBrandy , I suppose I would be happy to be thus portrayed by GA rather than something Captain Ahab might have pursued, accurate as that might be.

we so definitely need the laugh reaction back <huffs at The Misusers>

Thanks for all your good wishes for the Correspondent 🤗♥will update when we know more, promise x

If PRH have contracted the book then they will own the rights as far as I am aware, which means they can pull it if they so decide. They've already paid for it with advances and Sal won't get any further royalties until and unless OWH earns out its advance. So there's always the chance that OWH will sell so poorly that it never earns out and she never sees another penny from it.

PS no idea why the heart emoji is black and not red. Mistakes were made etc etc

I was forced to write in a rush earlier, so am sending my good wishes to our canine correspondent now and to Vroomie’s “vile” creature who are something that was very dead yesterday.
I’ve chuckled at all the latest posts, thank you!

Yes you must try that hairstyle @Uricon2 please!
I agree with the thoughts about Sally thinking she could always turn on the waterworks and pay off Chloe as that’s always worked before. I think I was disagreed with in the past when I suggested that she would have tried bribing Chloe but I think as so much more has unfolded about her character, it seems likely?

The sex scene in the book and film was to show that Moth was getting his libido back. Ray had been confiding in the reader about her looks, of feeling and looking old and unattractive. She was jealous of the women giving him a massage… which we know never happened…. And was feeling sorry for herself and unloved. Then Moth gets his mojo back, if it ever went away. I’m not sure how I feel about this as it’s obviously another one of her emotional hooks to obtain sympathy. I’ve sometimes wondered if she used her simpering methods on Martin Hemmings who developed feelings of sympathy and protectiveness and then took the money thinking she could always bribe him to keep his mouth shut. Pure speculation on my part, but made with the knowledge we have of her brassy nature that is so at odds with the shy, blushing bride in the old photos.

Yes, she does talk about them both as projections. Yes, Ray and Moth are fictional and her way of talking about them really proves this if nothing else. I go back again to the way that she uses the actors in character’ photos on her website to reaffirm this. She feels safe that way.

I totally agree that she is so deluded. It’s shameful.
There is an address in London to write a letter to Penguin Random House. I’ll paste in next post. The book needs to be moved into fiction and the other points we’ve made in this charabanc need to be addressed.

On another note; we went to Heligan Night garden yesterday evening. It was absolutely beautiful. I went into the shop afterwards and treated myself to a copy of Blossomise and noted that there was not one Raynor Winn book on the shelf amongst the writers of nature, walking and rewilding. No RW to be seen at all, thank you Heligan 👏🏻

One Embassy Gardens, 8 Viaduct Gardens, Nine Elms, London SW11 7BW, United Kingdom.

Thank you @Vroomfondleswaistcoat, that is interesting, so in effect Salray has been paid for OWH, it doesn't matter financially to her unless it gets published and sells well, then she would benefit from the royalties.

Good points @HatStickBoots, thank you for the explanation of the sex scene. I think I suggested that Salray was probably bribing her relatives to keep quiet in earlier posts, when no one was coming forward, but Salray seems to be quite mean with her money, she could have made financial recompense to her relatives, but no I was wrong, Salray is happy taking money, but not paying it back, I think she's too mean to bribe anyone.

Thanks for the address, I shall get the Basildon bond out. So glad you had a lovely RW free visit to Heligan :)

OWH is still available to pre order and the subject matter is written on the websites. Without going back to check, it’s about walking alone for the first time, Moth’s inevitable decline and her refusal to accept it, her tangled emotions. These will be mostly fictional because Moth may be declining but Tim seems right enough and while she was out there trudging along and cursing her three book deal he was exercising his Only Fans account.

Ive just remembered that Chloe said that she was refused an interview or chance to talk… which Sally denies… so she wasn’t prepared to bribe at that point and was probably relying on lawyers to sue the hell out of whatever was being said. She couldn’t and didn’t, so her next tactic is to pretend nothing ever happened. Face towards the sun, deny deny deny.

Yes, now that a longer period of time has elapsed than was intended, how is she going to talk up her worries about 'Moth' and his failing health, when he appears to still be in robust good health? Unless we're going to hear that he can't possibly appear in public any more as he's so fragile? But wasn't OWH written before all the film premiers at which he looked perfectly well? How does she explain all that?

Exactly, yes. He looked in very rude health at those premieres etc Are we supposed not to notice? It really does feel as though she’s re-writing The Emperor’s new clothes.

Actually.. it’s a case of “Never apologise, never explain” as a very savvy pp said earlier.
Either that or an ancient and hideous portrait of a Moth gargoyle in the attic. Sorry, the old schoolroom (my do has just reminded me!)

I mean, even if it had come out when it was supposed to then it was still post release of the film. Did she really think that nobody reading was going to wonder why she appeared to be so concerned with the health of a man who was not in any evident decline? Very much The Boy Who Cried Wolf.

Ooh I noticed that her website is all pics of GA and JI too @HatStickBoots.

I agree with what both of you are saying, the whole house of cards is falling down. It's all unraveling at the seams and CH is pulling on the threads. The truth about Tim's health is going to be realised, the medical letters do not confirm Salray's accounts and as you say, the physical reality of Tim doesn't either.

I will have to have a look at her website again now @ThisQuirkyRaven :)

From the blurb of OWH.
'Can she find the renewed peace and hope that previous journeys have yielded? And will Moth find the strength to walk beside her once again?';

To which the only answer appears to be 'hahahahaha'.

I went into the shop afterwards and treated myself to a copy of Blossomise and noted that there was not one Raynor Winn book on the shelf amongst the writers of nature, walking and rewilding. No RW to be seen at all, thank you Heligan 👏🏻

It sounds like a wonderful evening @HatStickBoots . Encouraging that Our Simon in conjunction with Angela H's work was on sale and not the Dreadful Volumes.

That's so good @Uricon2, I had a look at Angela's website the other day, I couldn't find any prints or merchandise using the books cover art. Perhaps those designs will slowly disappear, I don't know who owns the designs or controls the use, I can still find merchandise with other online sellers.
The SWCP association doesn't have any related merchandise on their site, but they have a lot to say about the salt path film, unfortunately, TSP has been a wonderful profile raising/fund raiser for them and they won't want to let it go.

Just had a peak on Amazon for the OWH pre order. Here's the back cover incase it gets changed later 🤭

Some comments from readers following the July article. Apologies if this has been shared before.

https://stargazer-online.com/2025/07/13/reflections-on-the-salt-path/

A rather negative review from 2021, and a few (more recent) comments. Apologies if previously posted.

https://theliterarysisters.wordpress.com/2021/08/05/the-salt-path-by-raynor-winn/

This is a new overview from Sky:

“Decline is now inevitable” that’s very strong & clear. When was it written? He believes this, not Ray. If so, is he depressed?