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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That’s right. She’s “drawn north like a migratory bird” apparently.

Yes, it was amazing! We were enthralled. There are large animal and insect sculptures made from a fibreglass material, sculpted and painted beautifully and all lit up amongst the trees, coloured lights, mirrored balls reflecting light and lasers of light that looked like swirling, colourful snow whirling all around the trees. There were a couple of installations too which involved light and sound.
Our Simon wrote ‘Dwell’ here. Have you read that one yet? It’s fantastic. I haven’t had a moment to settle and read ‘Blossomise’ yet but should have a chance tomorrow. On the subject of Angela Harding, it does sadden me that in some of the blogs, opinion pieces and articles since the exposé, her cover art has also been satirised and I hate that as why should her work have to be treated with the same contempt that should be reserved for the Walkers?

@PinkPanther57there are no dates mentioned on the article, but there's a lot of description for later comparison (if the book is ever released). The Lake district is where I grew up so I will probably read the book if I can find a free / charity version. The area doesn't actually get snow that often, even on the high fells - the prevailing Westerly winds are pretty warm, so I'd love to know the dates she claimed she walked that bit. It wouldn't be the first time that I had retrospectively checked a weather report to call someone out on a lie 🤭🤭

Raynor Winn On Winter Hill | Muddy Stilettos Cornwall | Muddy Stilettos https://share.google/uINCMZXBvQyHnqXu0

“And how is Moth? The event today is of course to raise money for the PSPA charity, which must be close to your heart.”
“He was in the best health that he’s been in years, but last was a really tough year, and he had a difficult time. But he’s been trying really hard to get back to where he wants to be, and he’s in a much better place now than he was a year ago, for sure.”

The PSPA charity is the one that oversees anything to do with helping people with CBD (Corticobasal Degeneration, which Moth has) [and Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP)].
They have support groups like the one in Devon and Cornwall, and that’s really helpful for people who live with these conditions to just share experience with other people, and for the families that are involved. It’s good to share and not have to explain yourself, or the feeling, or emotion behind all the physical feelings.”
End quote.
What made the previous year so “tough” for Moth and what does she mean “trying really hard to get back where he wants to be and he’s in a much better place than he was a year ago for sure.” ?

Of course his fucking decline is inevitable. Everyone's is! You just notice it more when you get past sixty, that's all.

The highly overwrought nature of the blurb makes me wonder whether Sal wrote it herself (authors sometimes do). Lots of emotive language designed to make us worry about Tim who, in case anyone needs reminding, was appearing at premiers dressed up to the nines, quite a while after this 'heartstring-tugging' rubbish was written.

I know that people with severe illnesses can have good days and bad days, so maybe we shouldn't be damning him too much for scrubbing up and trotting out to support his wife, but given that she uses his worsening health, his inability to walk with her (any more?) and her fears about his speedy decline to sell her books, added to the lies already spread thickly everywhere else - I would regard this with HUGE suspicion, even if I hadn't heard anything else about the controversy.

Wow, that's a long sentence. Please do NOT attempt to read aloud without a resuscitation device close to hand.

Also, from the blurb, the phrase 'she finds herself'. That passive voice is so typically Sal. Of course she doesn't 'find herself', she didn't fucking teleport there, did she? She organised, paid for and arranged the whole thing!!

Sorry. That's enough from me now, poor @ThisQuirkyRaven, this must feel like a personal attack, but it's the first time I've actually studied the blurb.

Need more cider...

Yet again the letter dates and discrepancies are overlooked.

I don’t understand why the fact, if I’ve got it right, the ‘thought ordinary apt but anything but…terminal diagnosis’ that provoked walk & homelessness couldn’t have happened until 2 years later?! Proving whole thing a lie has been overlooked & certainly not headlined by every (?!) review?

I think a lot of it is because people get hung up on their own particular issue (mine is the CB prize...grrrrr...) and most are concentrating on the 'encouraging people with a neurological illness to walk long distances being a good idea' aspect. The other part is that Sal has stolen lots of money over the years from various people. There are so many other aspects as to what she has lied about, and how much of any of the books is true that it's still a bit of a scattergun approach.

I suspect that Chloe has got this in her sights though, and that the dating of the letters will become a major thing if it seems as though Sal is getting away with it.

The book prize too! Surely though the whole premise a lie stronger & key?

I think possibly it's easier to use one central theme that can be absolutely proved, with evidence from professionals (ie, 'Tim does not have CBD') and concentrate on that. It's absolute. It's proven, He's either so atypical that CBD should never even have been on the radar, or he has some other condition that is, self-evidently, not going to be fatal in the timescale Sal laid out in her books.

Those are definites. If we start diluting facts with all the other demonstrable falsehoods, then things can devolve into infighting and cross-arguments which the WWs can use to prove bullying/jealousy or whatever spin they want to put on it. The facts are there, and laid one upon another it is absolutely clear that Sal has been swinging it from day one. But sometimes attention needs to be pinpointed to fire those first shots, and the rest will come in afterwards.

I think she did write all her blurb herself @Vroomfondleswaistcoat because it is all pitched in the same fraught, hand-wringing, woeful, catastrophic, clinging-by-fingernails, wailing, hysteria. We all know now that this language is used as a selling tool and nothing like the real woman’s inner voice (unless of course she wants to protect herself). The real woman is stony of heart and businesslike. I feel like giving her the verbal equivalent of a face slap. She has done so much harm and everything is so low, including pretending to be schizophrenic to her own family and she is so damned smug because she fooled so many people. I really pity the fact that AH had already done the cover so when OWH is released, her work once again shines as the polish on the turd beneath it. Dreadful shame.

I very much agree that it is a great shame that Angela H and her beautiful work has been associated with the SWCP 2 and consequent fallout @HatStickBoots and think if we support where we can the genuinely talented and worthy it acts as a bit of a counterbalance. I gave some AH calenders as presents and one friend was so knocked out by hers she said she's going back to lino cutting as a hobby. Similarly Blossomise, it's just a lovely physical object as well as admirable poetry. I've just put New Cemetery, Gig and All Points North in my Amazon basket and will add Dwell, I think I may have a copy but if so it can be passed on.

What made the previous year so “tough” for Moth and what does she mean “trying really hard to get back where he wants to be and he’s in a much better place than he was a year ago for sure.” ?

If there weren't so many other things in play I'd assume this might well mean depression, but the waters are so muddied she could just as easily mean an alleged physical issue.

@HatStickBoots I think you're right. It is so much 'her'. Bit of a puzzle for me as to why she was allowed to write her own blurb really - most of us authors aren't particularly skilled in the marketing field and blurbs are designed to 'pull out' the most saleable aspects of the book, not necessarily entirely what the book is about.

Which is why publishers have people - often the book's editor - who write the cover copy. They know what to concentrate on to make the book most appealing to readers who casually browse the cover.

My editor sends me my book blurbs just to tweak as I think necessary, and I have written book blurbs in the past, but I defer to my editor and publicist to know what aspects are the most likely to be picked up. Which is why I am wondering why Sal was let loose to produce one of the most vital aspects of the book promotion.

I also have the same problem and Observer tech have said that it is a known problem that they are trying to fix- awaiting to hear back if you can book online tickets any other way.

I must admit that OWH has a stunning cover and a brilliant title which will have doubtless been chosen by PRH..and all pitched to be released on the cusp of winter. Clever marketing, which is of course what mass market publishing is all about. Style over substance.

Thank you for saying. I sent an email to The Observer, yesterday, asking if they can advise a way around the problem - but have not heard anything from them.

It is a great pity if a lot of us are affected in this way as it will not register our interest. Chloe is unlikely to be informed that technical errors stopped a lot of indignant frothers, or irate wafflers (and whatever else we've been called) 'attending'.

My ever-listening phone just suggested this telegraph article. Non-fiction is in crisis. These five books prove it https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/non-fiction/five-books-show-publishing-lost-its-way/

Also @Vroomfondleswaistcoat not to worry, I love a good rant. Also, I work with teenagers - mostly teaching them a subject they have zero interest in, so it takes a lot to offend me 😆

Below is the whole piece on The Salt Path that is in the list of 5 books - shared by @ThisQuirkyRaven above.

Published in 2018, The Salt Path is an outlier on this list, but it was in 2025 that Raynor Winn’s memoir brought rare attention to one of publishing’s most serious and least discussed problems: fact-checking. Describing a 630-mile walk Winn supposedly undertook with her husband Moth – who was terminally ill, we were told – it was published to fanfare in 2018, and became a film starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs in 2024. Yet an Observer investigation this summer alleged that Winn’s backstory included deception and theft, and that the true state of Moth’s health was a matter of some doubt.

Legal action continues. Let’s just say that, in retrospect, it’s striking how perfectly the book appealed to Britain’s publishing industry. A beleaguered couple find strength and solace through a heroic walk? A supposed death-sentence is deferred by the magic of the Great Outdoors? It would be hard to find a more tidily-packaged, life-affirming, warmly first-personal story about overcoming adversity. A spate of similar books have, in the intervening years, followed suit. Readers will hope – and, for now, can only trust – that their favourites, especially the ones built on a heartbreaking story, turn out to be true.
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Very pleased to see that someone has actually said: a 630-mile walk Winn supposedly undertook with her husband Moth

As well, as the theft and health doubts, of course.

I was just on a thread in a completely different section and this advert popped up:

Its actually quite infuriating to see MN still promoting this book with a description suggesting it’s a “true story of resilience and hope”.

(Give it a few minutes for the photo to show….)

Can someone please let me know the date and time (in UK) that the Observer online with Chloe is to be held?

I wonder whether Sal wrote/was heavily involved with the back cover blurb on TSP!

Just days after Raynor learns that Moth, her husband of 32 years is terminally ill, the couple lose their home and their livelihood. With nothing left and little time, they make the brave and impulsive decision to walk the 630 miles of the sea-swept South West Coast Path, from Somerset to Dorset, via Devon and Cornwall.

They have almost no money for food or shelter and must carry only the essentials for survival on their backs as they live wild in the ancient, weathered landscape of cliffs, sea and sky. Yet through every step, every encounter, and every test along the way, their walk becomes a remarkable journey.

The Salt Path is an unflinchingly honest, inspiring and life-affirming true story of coming to terms with grief and the healing power of the natural world. Ultimately, it is a portrayal of home, and how it can be lost, rebuilt, and rediscovered in the most unexpected ways

That's bullshit!

Somehow I don't think cH's podcast is going to shift the direction of Sal's moral compass!

To everyone who has read and loved my books, thank you. Nothing has changed. The Salt Path remains my honest recollection of the time when we lost our house and found hope on the Coast Path. Except in limited cases, where names of people or details of places and events were changed to protect privacy, as explained at the front of every copy.