Thread 22 : 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 21 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?

Links to threads 18-20 can be found in the OP of Thread 21: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5460943-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?

Most recent:

• 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

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 6 months we have done amazingly well together for 21 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.

After 21,000 posts there are still new things to look out for on the path ahead:

• 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, 13th January 2026
• BBC Podcast (NB Not involving Our Chloe)

Keep to the path, no saltiness, eat fudge and drink cider.

NO POSTS PLEASE UNTIL THREAD 21 IS FULL

I think that we are at a stage where we are really dealing with the whole Raynor Winn brand. The 5 books (1 still unpublished), the film which is heartily promoted as true by the distributors and, at least one, of the main actors. All of those interviews, in different media, the merchandise with TSP covers on cups, etc. It all is built on sand.

@OurChloe , when talking about the 3 Penguin-published books (I have to say that now!) said that the 2 after TSP were really a continuation. She had already raised, in one of the July articles, how flexible the mother's death date was for the publisher and author. The whole house of Winn/Walker is undermined by inveterate lying.

Actually the correct usage is "I don't know about you but I'm feeling Pretty Damn Cosmic". It's a state of mind.😀It will probably fall flat if I have to explain it although someone may get the allusion.

"My name's Brandy - Beaver 'Big Bang' Brandy" could be in one of Sean Connery's Bond films. And he would reply "I'm sure it is."

Thank you for asking and .... I have no idea what it was, still. Cornwall was particularly hit the other night. It wasn't too bad when I was watching The Observer meeting but afterwards it was whistling through my house. The funny thing is, I was buzzing from all the comments on here which took my mind off jumping out of my skin.

The Wicked Witch of the West survives to once more patrol the coast path ...

I sort of came to this as a fan of Gigspanner who, having been to one of the Saltlines performances, thought that their tour would have been much improved when Sal had to drop out after the first article. Luckily they know a few other tunes and were able to perform their excellent Turnstone album instead.
Does anyone have a copy of this book?
https://www.gigspanner.com/shop/details/saltlines-a-journal

How about: Mine's brandy, shaken not stirred

Thank you@BeaveringBrandy, you are the charabanc oracle. I was wondering about the bang in the loft was too, love the name idea.
I get it @PrettyDamnCosmic, it's a wonderful feeling :)

Mind yourself, though -- ruby high heels, even magic ones, are not the best for patrolling cliff edges.

(Before I got my crumbling, draughty house better insulated, the attic hatch had a bad habit of lifting itself slightly and slamming down with a crash when the wind came from a particular direction unusually strongly. Might that be what caused your attic crash @BeaveringBrandy ? I had to warn babysitters after DH and I returned from a gig to find our childminder's 17 year old frozen in fear on the sofa, convinced we had a poltergeist...)

Well, that or some Furies have congregated in your attic to wreak havoc.

I just went and checked, it has got a sliding bolt, but only on one side so it could have lifted. The trees were going mad but only a branch down. The only thing decisively toppled was the wheelie bin but I can't think that would make me jump? One of my close relatives thinks long-superseded camping equipment was lifted and then dropped. Anyway thanks for the tip ....

Afternoon all and I hope you are well today. When I checked in on the thread late last night, I was rather relieved to see it was quiet and having a little rest after the various excitements of the last couple of days. I felt like I should be patting its overtired head, saying 'there, there' and tucking it in for a well-deserved early night.

OurChloe (who is probably going to get so sick of being tagged all the time that she Goes Dark) .
I think this is a very good point. Our Chloe has her hands full at the moment with her podcasts, starting on Tuesday 13th January, only a few days away now. She is interested in doing something with MN when she has more time, so we can start to look at that after the podcast. Anything of particular interest or use to her mentioned by posters on the threads will still be being picked up and fed back to her as before, I'm sure. Now that the initial excitement of her joining us on the charabanc and wanting to make her feel welcome has passed, it might be a good idea to go back to using Our Chloe on the threads instead of including the @. Similarly with PM'ing her, please do think about whether it is necessary. As Vroom astutely notes above, we don't want to bombard her or scare her away. Let's let her settle in and get as comfy as she wants to. Thanks all.

My DD rang me from first babysitting job @OnlyAfterwards , scared by strange sounds coming from darkened room, turned out the family dog had activated talking toy with failing batteries. Something shifting sounds most likely @BeaveringBrandy.

With this latest revelation, TSP now acknowledged as a second book, CH must have a copy (I always thought that a family member would have a copy, even if nobody else) in the Wikipedia blurb, it says there are plot similarities, it would be interesting to know more about those similarities, just out of curiosity.

Thank you @DisappointedReader, I wasn't sure about MN etiquette, if a poster is contributing, do we always have a put @ whoever when we refer to them, so you have answered that for me. The last thing we want to do is frighten her off, we didn't think she would climb on board, let alone share some fudge and cider with us.

Hi! I think we were very, very lucky because we were hit really badly here and managed to escape with only a few plant pots scattered around. An oak tree came down and part of it landed in our little neighbourhood playground, something has happened to next door’s solar panels, other side had her old fences blown out, some trees have suffered damage in the conservation area but a lot more came down and onto the power lines. Our power was flickering until the next day but we didn’t lose it. Some other houses nearby lost theirs though. We are quite tucked in where we live and often escape the worst of the storms except on the sea front, but this one curled right round us. When the alert for a red warning came through I couldn’t believe it. We’re used to squally weather here but this was something else. What was the bang in your loft? Did you lose part of your roof??

I agree with @DisappointedReader that we shouldn't bombard Chloe with questions or comments till she's got the podcast out. She's signalled her willingness to chat on the thread after Tuesday, which I think is great, and while I'm definitely thinking of questions I'd love her input on, I won't address them to her at the moment.

As a sort of running tally (and I'm just noting it here for my own purposes) I'd like to know

• whether the handwritten letters addressed to SW's mother have been able to be authenticated against a sample of SW's handwriting (or am I straying into melodramatic police procedural territory here?)

• is CH at all surprised that no legal action is, so far, forthcoming from the Walkers?

• After all, if they are to be believed, the Observer has promulgated a pernicious false narrative about them, wrecking their credibility, damaging their successful 'brand', doubting the illness of a dying man, falsely claiming SW is a thief, forger and embezzler who defrauded both an employer and three elderly family members of huge sums of money, and claiming that their 'unflinchingly honest' story is a tissue of lies.

• If Ch and the Observer are wrong, as SW claims in her two statements, why not take legal action?

A lot of my other musings are about the eight family members from both families CH spoke to, as the main thing pushed in RW's most recent statement is that a family rift means that some family members are spreading an untrue narrative about her (having presumably forged the 'confession' letters that purport to have been written by her?):

• at what point had they become aware that SW was the celebrated 'Raynor Winn'. (I know the two families hadn't met in 20 years, but presumably the people from each family who were in contact had talked about it among themselves once they'd become aware of who the author of TSP was?)

• Had any of them been aware of SW's literary ambitions?

• When approximately had they last been in contact with the Walkers?

• It's interesting that, despite the family thefts, and the rift with TW's France-based brother, some family members were still prepared to put them up for long periods. 'Anne' said they'd stayed with three previous family members before her.

• Did 'Anne' know SW had stolen from her grandmother when she put the Walkers up, even if she had not yet been handed the letters, which she was only given by her mother in late 2024? It seems a very generous act, if so.

• Was 'Anne' puzzled by having been portrayed in TSP as the slave-driving Polly, who put them up in a disused meatpacking shed and forced Moth to work beyond his remaining strength to convert it, rather than what seems to have actually happened, that she let them live rent-free in a comfortable furnished flat for eighteen months?

I mean, whatever about publishing snide stuff about unidentifiable strangers, it seems like a weirdly aggressive act to pillory in a memoir a relative who did you a huge favour. Same as the treatment of Warren Evans/ 'Grant'. It seems like a weird, vengeful tic in SW's writing, to put down people who were kind to them? Unconscious resentment?

• Do the family members recognise SW's representation of her own and TW's characters and early lives? I was wondering particularly about SW's overwhelmingly negative depiction of her mother as dour and disapproving of her, when 'Anne' said she in fact put her on a pedestal?

• If RW is telling the truth about a 'rift' in the family as the reason why some family members spoke to CH (though not entirely clear which family she's talking about), does that mean that some of the extended family are still on good terms with one or both Walkers?

I hadn’t finished reading the rest of the thread before quoting your post to me, so I apologise for asking you about it!

One interesting snippet from the event (which I hadn't picked up previously) was that TW did some work for Mrs Hemmings (unless I'm misremembering).

I thought it was that she'd volunteered at the NT property he was gardener at -- and that this was how the Hemmingses ended up employing SW, because TW had mentioned to Ros Hemmings that his wife was a bookkeeper who'd been made redundant...?

I wanted to know whether Our Chloe had found time to read any of the trilogy -TSP, TWS and LL - either cover-to-cover, or skim-read, or just selected a few pages to read and so to get a flavour of what she was investigating in her professional capacity.
Also, she did e-mail me last year to say she had personally experienced part of the Southern leg of the SWCP. I assumed from her reply that the pleasures of the West Somerset/North Devon/North Cornwall coastline she has yet to enjoy!
Luckily I held fire to enquire via this thread as I was waiting to hear from the OP. So thank you @DisappointedReader for your timely advice.
And I must confirm that it's true, I was brought up in Minehead, by parents from North London who were escaping from the 1940 "blitz". Wonderful part of the UK to have grown up in - my only regret was that I never quite mastered the Somerset "r" (as in ooh-ar! ) Quite distinct from other West Country accents.
The "up" by the way signifies up towards London (Paddington) not "down" towards Penzance.

@HatStickBoots : The storm sounds very intense. Maybe it will inspire SW to pen something - imagine how dramatic it would be.

Ah - apologies for the error, and thanj you for setting me straight. MWM.

Fabulous post @OnlyAfterwards ! 👏🏻
I’m sure we all share your thoughts about the ‘aggressive act to pillory in a memoir’ her own sister and Grant. Why was this so necessary to her? Either she changed the narrative so that her own sister wouldn’t recognise herself (which begs its own set of questions), the constant thread of being victims and underdogs or she’s always hated her sister.
The interlude with Grant in her book is particularly bizarre and one of those things that wouldn’t work in fiction unless the author was being deliberately funny. So, some readers may raise an eyebrow but accept it (along with everything else). She’s invented a different scenario here, not to protect ‘Grant’ in real life but to showcase yet more of Raynor’s insecurities despite the strength of their relationship.

I think about the future of the books too and how they will be marketed going forward. I’d like Chloe’s opinion on whether or not Penguin can be left with no choice other than to relabel them as fiction. Will they bend to public pressure to do this?

The part where their only income during TSP was £25 or £40 per week from Working Tax Credits, except neither of them were working and so they were not entitled to them.

Now I’m wondering if she really enjoys a relationship with the elements or is that just yet another thing that is lied about and apt for the character Raynor but not Sally 🤔 Is it another ploy to seduce the reader? No wonder meeting Sally Walker falls flat when you are expecting Raynor Winn!

I'm originally from Devon (pronounced 'Deb'n') and I remember that almost everywhere was 'up' for us, except Cornwall. But we didn't go 'down' to Cornwall, we just went 'to Cornwall'.

I wasn't at the event, but I do remember Mrs Hemmings telling Chloe at some point in her investigations that, Sally, Tim and the children had joined them for the Christmas festivities once.

You mentioned the literary ambitions, and were the family aware @OnlyAfterwards, it's just reminded me of Tim saying he had no idea Salray could write.
Probably the only bits of Raynor that are true in Sally are the mean bits @HatStickBoots, I'm sure she doesn't even go outside that much, I could be wrong, she could be outside now howling into the wind.