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

I see his hand in the crafting & plotting.

IMO I think it is likely they wrote it together, possibly in a process of Sally writing draft paragraphs during the day then Tim reviewing and editing them. Part of this process could well have included them analysing and discussing books and story structures as Tim mentions in the Sophie Rayworth interview.

I agree it was a collaboration of joint ideas written in her style and with a lot of paraphrased extracts from other sources, a huge amount of appropriation and not forgetting attaching themselves to Simon Armitage’s coattails and coasting along in his reflected glory.

I agree it is her style. It reminds me of her repeated anecdote about Pamela Anderson playing her in the film. Plus she looks at Gillian Anderson with side-eye and refers to her as glamorous - as you see.

That’s interesting, will look back.

I think there’s much from other sources as yet undiscovered too.

I think there was an agreement to limit his press exposure. Jason’s ‘you didn’t tell me he’d filmed that - oh boy’. The odd controlled sprinkling & keeping away from smarter journos.

Just catching up and hope all are well. I had a nightmare last night, in it DH was able to walk again (first time in years) and promptly announced he was going to leave me for ...Gillian Anderson, who was there explaining this decision. I awoke gasping for breath with that unaccountable sense of annoyance with DH and Ms A one gets after such dreams.

Anyway, Googled my rival, ( really to check if any Scam Path news) Discovered that her younger brother Aaron had a rare genetic neurological condition (Neurofibromatosis Type 1) diagnosed in infancy and he sadly died in 2011 aged 30. GA is very, very involved in fundraising and advocacy through the various support organisations, including being a Patron for Nerve Tumours UK.

I think this makes the deception she was unwittingly pulled into courtesy of the Winn Walkers all that much worse.

Wow. I imagine she must be furious and completely unable to express that!

Sorry about your nightmare @Uricon2 !

So funny @Uricon2, it is horrible when a dream leaves you with those lingering feelings, especially when they make you upset with the person from your dream. So sad about GA having suffered the loss of her brother, it was probably a major factor in her taking on this role, yet another person deceived by Tim and Sally.

Perhaps why GA wanted the rights?

That’s interesting. I don’t have X - can you explain why he thinks this?

@HatStickBoots @Freshsocks I was actually really shocked and feel very sorry indeed for her. As this information is anything but secret and I find it impossible to believe that you wouldn't do at least a cursory Google of a Hollywood star playing you on film, I think there's every chance Raymoth knew her family history while with them on the red carpet, etc. Just dreadful IMO.

Thoughts on 'banging on', 'indignant frothing', 'your tone is aggressive', etc.

I do feel we should resist attempts to curtail our discussions on this whole controversy. For 9 Threads I was carefully reading, only. When a certain individual (who named themselves as 'being full o' the milk o' ........) stated to one of our, still, regular posters:

By the way, your tone is aggressive. I imagine this could prevent other potential contributors from doing so.

That's when for the first time I joined. Not only Mumsnet but I have never joined in with Facebook, Instagram, or anything else, ever.

I don't like being told what to think or that some subjects are 'off limits'. We will continue to thrash things out and answer one another with civility. More of it!

Absolutely agree with everything you’ve said. I’m sure that Gillian’s personal and tragic life story was a deciding factor in her reasons for wanting the role, she felt she could draw on those experiences as an actor does. She’s a better “Raynor” than Sally Walker could ever be. The mocking tones that Walker uses to describe people she doesn’t like are spoken by the actress with almost an apologetic softness. The film falls short of including all the first person narrative inner dialogue that is in the book, thankfully.

It just proves yet again how much brass these two are made of, how low they have stooped.

I had never heard of John Sturgis (and don't have X). Googling him produced a link to his X/Twitter posts from the last year, which I really enjoyed (albeit nothing to do with TSP). So thank you to the original poster for mentioning him.

Good afternoon everyone and season's greetings. I have been thinking of you all fondly over Christmas from a distance and keeping a benevolent eye on proceedings most days.

A reminder of what I say in my every opening post of these 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.

Let us keep our debate full of seasonal goodwill to and from all posters please. A lively thrashing out of differing ideas, experiences and opinions is ever welcome here, and on almost all subjects, but please make every effort to keep that healthy, civil and respectful to all in keeping with the spirit of these threads. Sometimes a wee break to stare at the horizon with some fudge in one hand and a (low/no alcohol options available!) cider in the other can help to reduce any rising levels of saltiness.

Wishing one and all a Happy, Healthy and Peaceful New Year.

One thing that's still confusing me is the part about them trying to give away their house in a raffle. Before they became famous, their website said that anyone who bought Raynor's first book (published under the name of Izzy Wyn-Thomas) would be entered into a raffle to win the house "free of mortgage or any other legal or registered charge". The house had a mortgage of £230,000. Aside from how bizarre it is to offer such an extravagant prize for buying a book, how did they think that was going to work? Would they really just have given the house away?

That would make sense. I admit I did wonder why GA had been so keen to have the rights, as I thought that TSP was a difficult proposition to adapt for film — no plot, almost no dialogue, only two characters throughout, lots of shots of two people walking along an iconic path, much of which is difficult to access for a film unit etc etc.

But if GA had a personal reason for wanting to make a film that raised awareness of a terminal neurological condition, that explains a lot.

And I’ve also always been bemused by her separate claim in her first statement that ‘we put our home up for sale to try to protect some of its value, but it didn’t sell’ — what does that mean? How would selling a heavily mortgaged house ‘protect’ any if its value? And protect for whom? The Walkers weren’t going to see any of the proceeds…?

Happy New Year @DisappointedReader and wishing you the best 2026!

I'm still mulling over the sad situation for GA and her family that may indeed have been a reason for her investment in TSP, to the point of wanting to acquire the rights. It's easy to imagine that many of what Betjeman described as 'the shining ones' especially the 'together' and non self destructive members of the species exist on a plane where human tragedy doesn't touch them but of course it isn't true.

I know we've discussed the fact that GA seemed rather less fulsome about Salray than poor wellmeaning luvvie JI was about Timoth. OK, it could just be her gut feeling but I have to wonder if, given her long experience of a beloved family member with an incurable and potentially life limiting condition that did result in premature death, she started to find things didn't add up re Timoth and the 'narrative'.

No way of knowing unless she at some point speaks out and it is her right not to of course. For me, I didn't think my opinion of Sal and Tim Walker could get much lower but it really has. At least Salray had the grace to look uncomfortable at points (athough that could be for a number of reasons) but Timoth was positively lapping up the attention.

Happy new year, @DisappointedReader

Good to see that the posts continue to raise interesting points, and that there are new posters, even after many months.

If I were Police Chief Brody, I'd say "You're gonna need a bigger charabanc."

Normally there would be a new letter to the GP with every clinic attendance. The 2015 letter reads like the very first referral to Neurology. The 2019 letter reads like a follow up letter. Normally letters to GPs will sign off with something to the effect that the patient will be seen again in the clinic in three months or six months or after certain tests have been done. Neither letter does this but that may just be this particular consultant's style. It may be that the intervening letters either don't support SalRay's narrative or be from a Registrar seeing a
patient in Dr Davies' clinic & being excluded by her because they aren't from the "Big Dog".
I am not a neurologist & have never seen a patient with CBS/CBD but it's important to remember that corticobasal syndrome (CBS) just means a bunch of symptoms which may or may not be caused by corticobasal degeneration (CBD). CBD is an actual disease leading to death in 6-8 years. CBS on the other hand can be caused by pathologies other than CBD with a much slower progression. CBD can only be definitively diagnosed post mortem. In light of this & the various caveats in the letters I don't find them inconsistent. With the symptoms of CBS if you die within 6-8 years then you probably had CBD. If you still have symptoms of CBS after 10 years then you haven't got CBD.

Thank you @PrettyDamnCosmic, the letters don't give us the full information for each consultation, interestingly only one page of the 2019 consultation has been shown by Salray, we can't see the conclusions drawn by the consultant at the end of this consultation.

That's very helpful. However, how would you interpret the neurologist's comments in the 2025 letter that "I was keen to acknowledge in our discussion that his clinical story has been unique".

If he had say Parkinsons rather than CBD then surely his story wouldn't have been unique (in terms of time survived since first symptoms observed and cases where physical activity have slowed or reversed the course of a Parkinsonian like condition). The comment that Moth's clinical story has been unique, seems strange to me.

Even though Sal has tried to muddy the waters in her rebuttal statement by claiming that CBD and CBS are used interchangeably, in both TSP and the majority of interviews she has given, she has been adamant that the original diagnosis was categorically clear and was for CBD (p 15 TSP "I believe you have corticobasal degeneration, CBD") and that, by implication, Moth had only a short time left to live.