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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Doesn’t it point to Tim etc as part of the publishing Co (?) Gangani from memory…Could that be flagged (?)

Yes, you are right he was the Director of the publshing company:

How Not to Dal Dy Dir

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Gangani Publishing Ltd
Publication date ‏ : ‎ 1 May 2012
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 254 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0957303106
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0957303102

So it could be said it is thought her first novel was HNTDDD where plot xyz seemed to mirror documented real life events - alias IWT - or strong link therein - supporting evidence is the publishing company xyz etc. (?)

An old podcast, October 2023
Interesting as it’s after the film has been made according to Salray. She is at her heart-wrenching best in this interview.(her bit starts around 28 minutes in)
There are some little details that seem at odds with her usual, now very rehearsed story that we have heard so many times, for example details re their wedding which make it sound like a normal family wedding rather than a romantic runaway on Skye, or finding the guidebook for the Landlines walk.

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/postcards-from-midlife/id1491922331?i=1000631336090

Actually the bit about the wedding is from when she reads a passage from Landlines. I’m confused. Maybe I need to find the original reference to the wedding-I think it was in TWS

The reference would be the Observer article where this is covered. Wikipedia prefers secondary sources, like newspapers, to primary sources like the details of the publishing company. Someone will get around to adding this to the article, I'm sure.

How I've seen this put is that Wikipedia articles don't attempt to report on the truth. They report what reliable sources say about the subject - so if we have reliable sources like The Guardian accepting Winn as a long-distance walker, even if we can see that that is largely on the evidence of her own books, that's what the article will reflect. If or when sources start saying that maybe she didn't do the walks, that can be added to the article.

Out of interest, has anyone located a copy of HNTDDD? I'd love to read it, but I imagine it would be easier to find sparkly rocking horse poo. On a separate note, I've studied those medical letters in detail and I've been left with more questions than answers.

The latest Observer article suggested Chloe had seen a copy as more plot parallels to their life revealed.

"What do you think is going on with him, healthwise, when he does this walking?" Sally says that his health began to improve in ways we were told were impossible. No one had told them that, of course.

I hear her saying, in this broadcast, that it is the Cape Wrath trail that they had always wanted to do - no mention of the one that they had always planned to do from the moment they met (The Coast to Coast).

I would say that Long Distance Walker is always going to be tricky to pin down. Does one have to do consistent long distance walks to be a long distance walker, or only one? And what constitutes a long distance? For some people a couple of miles is a long way - do you have to have walked long distance paths and how much of them do you have to have walked, and how consistently, in order to be a long distance walker?

Basically, I think quibbling over this would just be opening the door to Sal's incessant attempts at self justification. If she can call herself a 'rewilder' on the strength of heaping up some sticks and a 'farmer' on the strength of having once kept a sheep and a couple of hens, then I'm sure she will hang onto the description of 'long distance walker' on the very flimsiest of justifications.

The orchard/cider farm running TV episode spoke volumes to me…

You’re right although I think it’s curiously possible they really only did the odd few nights under canvas. Didn't it come out too that they had access to a van all along? Or something.

@PinkPanther57 I think labelling things can be problematic because it's hard to argue against someone who says 'well we DID do long walks - just not those ones,' or 'Moth IS seriously ill, he's just got a DIFFERENT neurological condition'. Sal seems skilled at weasel-wording and yesbutting, so I think we should concentrate less on whether or not she can be called a long distance walker and more on the demonstrable lies that she has told.

Wikipedia states RW's "occupation" as "Writer, long distance walker".

I don't know what the criteria are for walking being one's occupation.

I don't disagree with you on what we should concentrate on. To give the context of why I mentioned 'long-distance walker' - we were specifically discussing the Wikipedia page, and how it has been edited - and it lists this as her Occupation.

In one of the edits, someone added "lier" to RW's occupation(s). That edit got deleted. I suppose we all lie down for a lot of our lives, and so this activity was not regarded as being enough to amount to an occupation.

Yes, I was going a bit off topic because we were discussing what made a long distance walker! Didn't mean to impune your sterling efforts with Wiki, it was more of a plea to the thread not to let us fall into the 'scattergun' approach of 'things that Sal has done wrong' because the list is so dangerously long that we're in danger of forgetting what we're talking about!

100 per cent. This is why the defenders can fairly easily excuse to date.

What are the agreed ‘demonstrable lies’ ? Do we have a list.

Thanks @Vroomfondleswaistcoat - agree about 'scattergun'.

And @Peladon - overlapped with you again! Still laughing about 'lier'. For Occupation, I would choose: Blagger

I think there's a good summation at the top of each thread. We know she lied about why they lost the house, that is a matter of recorded fact. We know that she embezzled money from at least one set of employers - some of the rest is hearsay and conjecture. We know that the dates on the 'Moth has CBD' letters don't tally with the alleged dates of the 'we found out he was ill and went for a walk' parts of the book.

Other things, like the family telling how Sal stole money from her mother and MIL are very likely true but very hard to prove absolutely because there are no records - unless someone can dig through old bank statements and provide them. It's too easy for Sal to say 'Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it in for me..'

The biggest ‘demonstrable lie’ all interviews should include or begin with is …? That Sal can’t wriggle from…

The date of the diagnosis.

Just asking that simple question would say so much & asking for a clear answer.

Although wouldn’t she get sympathy again by saying it’s grey, not binary?

Countered by asking ‘but when was this routine appointment that turned out to be anything but’.

Salray has firmly placed the walk in 2013, walking ahead of SA, being mistaken for him, Tim walking with his terminal diagnosis. First consultation with neurologist 2015, as evidence by Raynor in her rebuttal. It is only a consultant neurologist that could give a diagnosis like this, and it is evident from the letter that this is his first meeting with a consultant neurologist.