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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Maybe it’s the fact that there’s documentary evidence that it’s true is making us feel weird. I mean, in a sea of fiction.

It’s quite something that Martin Hemmings (RIP) had an accountant who was querying an invoice!
SalRay as the bookkeeper had a further check and balance on hr records yet still managed to embezzle £64k!
It seems perhaps a faked invoice for a motor engine, we also heard of faked bank statements for her mother, and faked signatures on MH cheques….this is really very bad. It’s absolutely devious. Not just the temptation of “£600 cash” in her bag due to be banked, peeling off a few £10 notes. She’s a fraudster!

I keep wondering how much of it she even wrote. As others have pointed out, writing a book is hard graft. Her agent and others in that agency have 'ghostwriting' listed as one of their skills. Given that this is an agency dealing with non fiction books, many of their clients would not necessarily have the requisite skills to author a book, so how is the writing process managed? I may be stretching a bit here, but is it possible the agency provides a degree of ghostwriting? And is that why Sally was reluctant to chat too much to her writer neighbour? Less because she had things to hide about not having walked the path as described, but more because she had huge amounts of help writing it. Some of those clips online where she is supposed to be giving an authors talk or discussing her process with another author are...unconvincing at best.

The phone call was from the estate agent's accountant, not the garage? The fake invoices would have gone to them, along with the genuine ones, for them to prepare tax/ VAT returns.

Has she actually delivered a creative writing course? I think I remember someone had attended on one of earlier threads?

Regarding personality disorders such as NPD, aren’t they cruel and controlling towards their partners but the total opposite when “on stage” or towards their armies of associates and acquaintances who can never believe that the person they see is anything other than wonderful? I’m wondering if there was anybody close to Sally who might have witnessed or suspected anything like that. As far as I can tell, from what’s being presented, Sally appears to be totally enamoured in a way that was probably unhealthy. An obsession perhaps. In my experience that sort of fixation causes a lot of young men to flee but Tim didn’t, which does suggest that he enjoyed her worship. I do think he was very fond of her but I think he’s very fond of being the centre of attention. (I imagine the fact that he can’t cock about in public now with a fawning army of fan girls and boys is somewhat depressing, if he is an NPD.) Sally does reveal in her writing that he can put on charm, but the reader sees that as normal for a cheeky chappie, not necessarily a man so free of qualms that he can siphon thousands of his parents’ pounds into his own bank account. Whose idea was that? It seems that Sally had the bug for stealing money… was it her idea? I don’t know who manipulates who in that couple.

The first book plot really does intrigue me. Everything laid bare like that. Don’t manipulators really enjoy and get a thrill from tricking people, especially in plain sight? I imagine that Sally has been beside herself with glee up until July. When thinking up how to create TSP, they decided to abandon the plot of HNTDD which was ironically (as others have pointed out) closer to the truth than its follow up TSP. I absolutely know in my bones that they both created TSP together and decided how it would be written. Up until then they’ve been very successful at emotional manipulation with their own families and employers so why not the general public? Why a book though? I know we’ve mused over this before because a book seems a very unlikely way to bring in vast amounts of revenue when you’re just starting. Is it because of their employment track record that they felt there was nothing else they could do to try and earn money? Sally believed in her ability to be a writer of course, but they really must have believed the idea held all the elements to be a success. I bet they couldn’t believe their luck when it was. All the acting they then had to do in public didn’t even seem to take its toll as long as they stuck to the script. Sally seems the most businesslike despite the alter ego Ray being anything but. When I say ‘businesslike’ I mean in her ability to hold it together, to play the role she created with a degree of confidence. However, the mask slips when she finds herself with people who are genuine, such as in the encounters spoken of by Ruth who was perplexed by Sally’s persona and unwillingness to chat or share with a fellow author. That sort of standoffishness is not what you expect of Raynor when you read the books. In real life interactions when she’s caught off guard with no time to rehearse, she’s as stiff as a plank. Tim on the other hand requires no script. He’s been playing the affable, charming rogue since he was born probably.

I unfortunately suspect too this is tip
of iceberg stuff.

I think she was due to do something with Arvon, but more in the way of walking in nature and finding inspiration. Iirc, it was cancelled after the July Observer article

@SimoArmo Apologies - I was typing my post to you above when you were adding your edit! It reads as though I'm bonkers and can't read properly 😂

Not always, sometimes they're objectionable across the board. Just look at the current POTUS - possibly the most high-profile example of a text-book narcissist in recent years. I think of several adjectives to describe him, but charming and charismatic aren't among them. Yet he still manages to attract a huge number of followers.

I think it’s interesting Tim swerved/swerves interviews. Why? Ray is the one who goes into bat.

If you write with the movie in mind ££ are possible. Sal bangs on about the universal human experience. Lovkdown helped tap to zeitgeist.

Sal says ‘I knew what he [Tim] was thinking - how had it come to this?’ Re: the financial dispute. Had she failed him?

Just catching up on doco & think it’s interesting Ros Hemmings said Ray displayed no personality at all really. Very closed over years of working with them even taking being professional into account.
When she did speak it was to complain about a lack of money ruining life.

Martin had to sign the NDA about the fraud & Sal chose to write about it in HNTDDD & Tim allegedly handed out copies in local bookshop?

As we know for sure that they got married on Skye, I suspect that the wedding photos we are seeing are actually of a reception following a church blessing local to Salray's parents. Blessings after civil ceremonies were more common at that time, IIRC. Particularly as Salray's parents seem to come from a more traditional rural working class farming community, the registry office wedding wouldn't have been enough to make the marriage seemly. I suspect they got married in more ordinary clothes on Skye, then dressed up in the Laura Ashley and Clotted Cream Crust Dandy Highwayman outfits for a church blessing when back at home, with the expected flowers, cake and reception for family.

I'm suggesting a blessing rather than a full wedding ceremony because I'm not sure whether or not you could get married again in church if you'd already had a civil ceremony - does anyone know? I wonder if the Parish records for the church local to Salray's family home would tell us anything? Any correspondents want to give it a go?

I’m wondering if there was anybody close to Sally who might have witnessed or suspected anything like that.
I mentioned before that the DIL makes a loving Facebook post about Sally, but doesn't really mention any feelings towards TimMoth, which seems odd considering how effusive everyone else is towards him. Often in-laws have insights into the family dynamics that the adult children are blind to.

I think Sal’s laugh in response to Jason’s “you were conned out of everything” was an interesting response.

I bought my first house in South Yorkshire for £18,500 in 1983 with a 10% deposit. It was a nice solid inter-war three bedroom semi-detached with a reasonable size garden. I was earning about £11,000 per annum & my ex-wife about £6,000 so the mortgage was less than 1x our joint salaries. Of course interest rates went up to 15% but we had MIRAS to mitigate the cost.

It really shows how house price inflation has totally distorted the economy. That £18,500 is* *£63,458 in today's money but houses in that road now sell for around £200,000. Average salary in 1983 was about £8,500 so to buy my £18,500 house required a mortgage of 2x salary. In 2025 average salary is around £35,000 so would require a mortgage of 6-7x salary to buy the same house.

Not at all!

I wonder what bare faced lies she told the accountants to squirm out of that close call? Lots of breathy word salad perhaps. She must have perfected her script if it happened regularly...quite the media training for keeping up the Salt Path lie. She must have also constantly lived in fear for being caught. What a life to live.

When I watched that clip back in the mists of thread time, I thought the laugh and her immediate eye contact with Alex Jones looked nervous. It was as if she thought Jason was a bit of a loose cannon and quite dangerous to her. On the other hand, Jason's comment was a very supportive one to her public hard luck story.

She probably felt her usual control of the script was slipping, a sudden and unexpected curve ball that caused brief panic because she was so used to the reliability of her line "we lost our house due to a financial dispute with a liiiifelooong fwend." .. then inner monologue "fuck what is Jason saying!!!!???"

We can't imagine living like that but I think she probably always has, from teenage probably. She is cool as a cucumber and very controlled most of the time. That's why I was interested in the obvious irritation that she displayed over questions over Moth's name, a couple of times.

Jason carried on being manipulated - she texted him about what an impact they would be making to highlight homelessness - when he was at a premiere/interview that she wasn't.

The Observer had already repeatedly contacted them before the film release and they made those public appearances and TV interviews. I think some of those Gigspanner performances were after the invitations to meet, too,

Brassneck to the extreme ...

Doc comment from Sal ‘let’s make it up as we go along’ never a truer word…

On the initial ‘loan’ - how would things have turned out if the initial money to get them out of trouble hadn’t been forthcoming?

If Moth is NPD and she’s been with him since she was (a rather shy, unattractive?) 18, then the chances are that she’s been controlled since then. I was with my (suspected) NPD ex for about 3 years and by the end I was a shell of myself. The cruelty is their skill in exerting coercion only when more straightforward manipulation isn’t working, or to remind you who’s in charge- and it might be a rare event. So rare and such a contrast that you doubt yourself, you doubt your own memory of what’s happened or hasn’t happened. You’re embarrassed and ashamed because they’re so lovely to everyone else that no-one wants to believe you that they’re ever unpleasant- so you doubt your own perception of events. You minimise, you might even outright lie. You convince yourself that your happiness depends on making them happy- that if you improve this or that then they’ll be happier, because their unhappiness is your fault.

All to say that the observations pp have made above about SalRay’s character and manner don’t surprise me at all; if you read them with the suspicion that she’s a victim of coercive control, they make sense.

Does anyone else remember the Rob and Helen storyline in the archers, in about 2013, 2014? I had to stop listening for a while because it was so true it was really triggering for me. Her going hunting with him even though she was against it, all that stuff.

I think it’s very revealing that they have/had no close (any?) friends. Might this fit with Moth’s reluctance around interviews where he can’t control what’s said?

@PinkPanther57 i think so. My ex now doesn’t see a couple who he described when introducing me to them as his best friends- I “got” them in our separation- and I do wonder if it’s because they saw what happened. He was always very controlled and kind of superficial- like no deep relationships at all, only a wide circle of acquaintances who he would do anything for, prioritise over me or his mum, if he had to let someone down it would be us. And he’s got multiple godchildren for example, has done lots of volunteering, he’s universally seen as a good, community-minded bloke.

I wonder if they've been sitting on the edge of their seats all this time, since the film came out and the Observer's first contact? It seems as though their deceit is mostly a matter of public record and I just can't see that they can't have been half expecting the chickens to come home to roost at some point? I know NPD can think they are invincible, but with all the witnesses to the theft and deception and so many people getting mentioned in the books for being and saying what they didn't and weren't... did it SERIOUSLY never occur to Sal and Tim that people were going to stand up and tell the truth?

Run down on how it goes in the CofE @DisappointedReader and I think it's very similar for Methodism. It used to be a way for people remarrying after divorce to have a church ceremony before the Anglican rule change

https://www.churchofengland.org/life-events/your-church-wedding/planning-your-ceremony/wedding-blessings

I think (not entirely sure) it would be more like the formal marriage service if RC.

While searching, Google AI provided this snippet

• Raynor Winn has been quoted as saying, "I don't believe in God, in any higher force. We live, we die; the carbon cycle keeps running".

I suppose Moth Worship isn't actually a religion