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 now have visions of your DH and PLF meeting one another, avoiding eye contact and the entire conversation consisting of 'you a'right?' 'Yeah, not bad, you?' 'Yeah, grand thanks,' and then them going their separate ways.

This adds yet more evidence that there was no terminal CBD diagnosis back In 2013 - if there were a blagger of SW's ability would have had no problem whatsoever in convincing a local authority that they were a priority for social housing.

I really have snorted the proverbial MN drink down my nose at that @Vroomfondleswaistcoat !

There is no end to the interesting people DH interviewed/met that he has little recollection of . I give you-

Summoned to speak to Princess Margaret at a reception -

'She was OK'.

What did I marry, seriously.

I do not know whether the 'love' or the 'support' emoticon is most appropriate here...

Don't forget, SW said (when asked whether she made notes foe the book) that she threw away the notebook. To save weight.

Noodles.

I'm another of the didn't read the book until the scandal broke, lurked until thread 14 (those first 14 were hard to keep up with) signed up, I have never engaged in anything online before, I don't have any social media, and I'm not getting involved in anything ever again, you are all so interesting it keeps me on this journey, so until @DisappointedReader pulls the charabanc over for the last time, and chucks us off :)

It was the health claims that interested me most about the story, considering Tim was still alive, It's tough enough for people dealing with disability and the adversities of life, without some charlatan being embraced as a spokesperson. We discussed at length threads ago, the danger of letting these claims of miracle cure by walking in nature continue. This belief that you will be cured if you immerse yourself walking in nature, it's not accurate or helpful.

Salray shows no concern for those genuine people who her lies have the capacity to harm. Salray protests that it is still a lovely story, how mean of CH to expose the lies, I can't remember who said that Salray seems to think that she is a guru, unfortunately however much you believe in her, it's only Tim that you will see recovering from this terrible condition. The others, well Salray couldn't give a tinkers cuss, they can take their chances with the stairs.

There are not scores of people walking around praising Salray for their recovery, the only people who now believe her, most likely have nothing wrong with them, Salray only cares that her readers have healthy bank balances. Lots of people might have been inspired to walk by TSP, the SWCP association talks about all the money they could potentially save the NHS if people walked their path or others. What would have been next, make Salray the ambassador for walking?

What would have been next, make Salray the ambassador for walking?

The South West Coast Path Association already did that (though IIRC, they revoked the title after the first Observerr article).

I had forgotten that the SWCP had made her their ambassador, too long on the charabanc, I'm forgetting what I once knew :) I was thinking more of a national role, advising the government, but there you go, she was on her way.

It certainly seems that she must have said "yes" to very many of the offers she received. The vast number of radio interviews, TV shows, newspaper and magazine articles, book recommendations, YouTube interviews, we have seen - for the UK and other parts of the English-speaking world, for a start. Then we have the film, the Gigspanner tours and it was going to be the wellness retreats.

I have wondered if she did just go for it all knowing that her luck would run out one day .. just as she stole everything she could from both sets of parents, and her employers. I'm convinced there has been a pattern of this even earlier but there would have to be acquaintances, that go back further, to prove that.

That’s the great thing about fiction. You just make stuff up. 😀

I once lost about 8,000 words (my laptop appeared to have eaten them, unsaved) and after I’d stopped swearing and banging my head on the table, I couldn’t get back to the right headspace to try to replicate exactly the section I’d lost. So the characters did something a bit different, which turned into something quite different, and meant the ending was completely other than originally planned.

Who knows, maybe the first draft of Lightly Salted Blackberries began with SW acknowledging she’s a dreadful human being and deciding to walk the SWCP as penance, accompanied by a TW who just has a few middle-aged man aches and pains but is a hypochondriac? And they stayed in BnBs a lot, took buses when they felt like it, had a few thousand in the bank, and were both kind of bored by nature?

Oh, she’d have been a shoo-in as Wellness Tsar.

@BeaveringBrandy I think you are right, there was no end plan with the embezzlement, or the other thefts, just until the money ran out or she was caught.

Oh no, a Wellness Tzar @OnlyAfterwards, let's just hope Chloe's investigation puts a stop to any further titles, other than the obvious :)

Yes, and then somehow chose to carry large fossils 🙄. Maybe she thought they would bring her riches.

Only just spotted the shoo-in @OnlyAfterwards, it takes me a while sometimes :)

The SWCP association website advertises the film and writes quite nicely about it, which I can’t understand. I thought that after she was dropped as Ambassador that they would have distanced themselves from all it.

As quite a few of you are reflecting this evening on what hooked you in to these threads/the story, I’ll reveal that beyond my interest in Psychology, human kindness (!), long distance walking, the restorative power of nature, the importance of well-written fiction etc, I have an albeit tenuous connection in that a member of my family has a friend who is closely related to Martin Hemmings. This relative of MH confirmed that it was all true when the story first broke so I’ve never doubted our Chloe. (I’d love to ask them for more details but I know they would not want this - and I’m sorry for any disappointment this causes fellow charabanc riders!). This helps me keep the very real victims in mind when people question “why not leave poor SalRay alone and just enjoy the book”.

SW is to wellness what Theresa Coffey is to health.

Re. Amazon reviews

You can buy blocks of fake 5 star reviews, in the same way that you can buy blocks of fake followers on social media. There are agencies which specialise in it. I'm always sceptical of anything on Amazon which has fantastic reviews for this reason. I'd bet all my fudge 'n' cider that publishing companies engage in this too, as 'publicity' for certain books.

Word of mouth phenomena, when looked at critically, generally have a clever marketing team behind them. I mean we've been wondering who came up with the idea to contact The Big Issue. That was just the start. All it would take is a few good genuine reviews on the likes of Amazon for someone to say, let's start amplifying this. Half Sally's agency worked in advertising on the exec side and would know all the tricks of the trade. .

So yes, it did sell millions, but you know what people are like - once word gets around about something everyone wants to have a go, and the whole thing snowballs whether it has any real merit or not. That's what the marketers are experts at.

I was only vaguely aware of the book and the film before the Observer report. After that and the threads here, I got interested and looked at some interviews with Sally. I was shocked at how shallow she seemed, how she was unable to speak in any meaningful way about her writing, how she repeated the same stories over and over, and how out of her depth she seemed. Yet she is supposed to have written not just one, but three bestselling books. There was no weight behind her words, which is always a dead giveaway. There's a lot missing.

Well, she could say yes to all these things, because neither she nor Tim had a day job! Most writers of my acquaintance are either supported by a partner who has a decent job that brings in a regular income, or other means of financial support apart from their writing (pension, trust fund etc) because living solely on your writing income is a VERY precarious place to be, certainly at the start

Whereas Sal seems to have assumed that TSP and all the rest would sell so big that she would never have to work again, and therefore threw herself into all the interviews and shows that were offered. I've lost count of the number of things I've had to turn down because I had to go to work!

(Now early-retired and surviving, just, on writing income, but it certainly doesn't pay me enough to go jetting off to Iceland - and that's after having nearly 30 novels published!)

I wonder whether Moth's enrolment at Plymouth Uni from Sept 2015 was part of a strategy to generate sufficient income (added to his Pip) to enable Sal to focus on writing TSP in their one bed apartment in Polruan from Sept 2015. Did Moth really ever plan to use his degree in garden design and horticulture to get a job/generate income? Based on his previous employment history, it seems unlikely.

If Sal had decided to go to the St Austell job centre in Sept 2015 she might have been asked about her previous employment history - sacked from Martin Hemmings estate agency in 2008 for embezzlement. Quit a sheep fleece bagging job in 2014 after a day. Sales and marketing at Gangani Publishing? Hmm. I can't imagine job offers would have been flooding in for Sal.

In contrast Sal did have some experience of writing (HNTDDD), walking (short stretches of the SWCP), losing her house, playing the victim while stealing from family members, lying through her teeth and making stories up. Why not rehash some of the themes in HNTDDD, base it on the SWCP walks, juice up the bits about homelessness, Moth's illness and the physical and financial challenge of the walk, and Bob's Your Uncle. After all, what else was she going to do while Moth was off studying at Uni from 2015-2018.....

@SimonArmpit But it was a HUGE gamble, when the book could have sunk without trace. She had no way of knowing that any of these would sell, OK, maybe after TSP was a bit hit, but even so I've known second and third books following up a big hitter to fail badly. Nobody is ever advised to 'give up the day job and write' - the sensible among us work and write.

Oh, hang on, I said 'the sensible among us' there, didn't I? Oops, sorry, forgot we were talking about someone whose idea of 'sensible' is to steal money rather than work for it, forget I spoke.

I think you are right. As we've discussed on these threads, to some degree she just got lucky - tapped into a zeitgeist when Covid hit. I got a reminder from Amazon this morning that I read TSP in Jan 2021 during Covid. So I was also swept up in the mass delusion!

A couple of coincidences have always struck me as me a bit odd.

Sal's first IG post was on 25 Oct 2016. GMC's first IG post was on 24 Oct 2016. The email to TBI was sent on 6 May 2017 and TSP was launched with a massive fanfare on 8 March 2018, with the red carpet rolled out at Waterstones, appearances on Saturday Live etc.

All seems part of a very clever marketing strategy that suggests that TSP's success didn't just happen by chance and was bankrolled by PRH in a way that isn't typical for most first time unpublished authors.

I think PRH set out to MAKE TSP a hit. They are the experts, after all, in reading the zeitgeist and knowing what the public are looking for. Perhaps they'd seen an uptick in real-life nature walking book sales and they decided that Sal's Everyman approach would do well.

Publishers pay to get books prominence in bookshops and once a book is being shoved in your face every ten seconds it tends to get noticed. So they certainly put some marketing heft behind it.

I think they used experience and industry knowledge to make it a best seller. It could all have gone horribly wrong, of course, and bombed. But they also must have said to her 'if this sells well we're going to need another couple of books, so be ready.'