Thread 23 : 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?

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?

Thread 22:www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5470952-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?

Most recent:

• Salt Path: A Very British Scandal, available on Sky Documentaries and NOW TV, 15th December 2025
• ‘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
• Observer Newsroom: The Real Salt Path Story, Thursday 8th January 2026

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. For over 6 months we have done amazingly well together for 22 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 22,000 posts there are still new things to look out for on the path:
Podcast series (7 episodes) from The Observer's award-winning Investigative Journalist Chloe Hadjimatheou, 13th January 2026.
The Walkers: The real Salt Path | The Observer

After listening to some of The Walkers: The real Salt Path podcast episodes from The Observer today my thoughts are even more with the victims. I also believe that the publishers, agent and prizegivers must now act and be seen to act.

Please start each post with the podcast episode you are commenting on, for clarity and to help others avoid spoilers if they wish to do so. Many thanks.

As always, keep to the path, no saltiness, eat fudge and drink cider.

NO POSTS PLEASE UNTIL THREAD 22 IS FULL

Like Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment. Exactly - truth, in my book, is more important than utility.

I'll have to look that up - but thank you.

Sal has tried to argue in her rebuttal statement that there is something called 'her truth' which seems to imply that she is authorised to omit, embellish and fabricate as much as she wishes.I think this is tosh, but maybe this is the convoluted way that pathological liars justify their actions.

Civil society operates on the basis of something called absolute truth established by hard facts rather than impressions or feelings.Sal might claim, for example that she just borrowed the money from the Hemmings and always meant to pay it back. Sadly, the Father Ted argument (the money was just resting in my account) doesn't stand up in a court of law where judgements of innocence or guilt are based on factual evidence.

CH's investigations have established beyond all reasonable doubt that Sal's "truth" is in fact the complete opposite and is based on a pack of lies.

A recent FB comment on the controversy, questioning the validity of the concept of Sal's truth.

A few years ago I read The Salt Path and I was completely pulled in. It was beautifully told, of two people walking the South West Coast Path, around 630 miles, with almost nothing. There was critical Illness and shame. Wild camping and kindness from strangers and it was a heartfelt and gripping read. And here lies the question. Must memoir be absolute truth? Or is it just a storytelling container? When we walk through a door labelled fiction, we’re saying ‘surprise me!’ When we walk through a door labelled memoir, we’re saying ‘I’m trusting you.’ That’s why the recent controversy and competing accounts hit such a nerve. Because what’s being questioned is whether the inciting incident and the stakes were represented in a way that matches what readers (and watchers of the film) believed what door they were walking through. Here’s the storytelling geek coming out In story, the beginning is everything. The opening sets the moral frame. It tells us who to root for, what to fear, what to forgive, and what to celebrate. If the foundation shifts, the entire emotional meaning of the journey shifts with it, even if the scenes on the path still happened in some form. And at the same time, memoir isn’t a court transcript. Memory is a reconstructive act. We edit the trauma, blur the shame and compress time. So another question; If you change a detail and it changes: • why the reader empathises • what the reader believes you survived • how the reader interprets the choices you made • who else is cast (fairly or unfairly) as villain, saviour, or bystander, then that detail is structural. And that’s where responsibility lives, I think, in not building emotional impact on a misleading foundation. Because memoir isn’t just “my story”. The moment it’s published, it becomes other people’s story too.

With tongue firmly in cheek, how many people have been influenced to lie and steal? at the moment these books are testimony to the wealth and rewards that can be achieved by dishonest people. No repercussions from the publishers, who should bother with the truth, when lying and embellishing is far more profitable :)

I think people might still buy the books, they might delude themselves that there is something meritorious about these books from a walking angle. The real question of how much do you trust Salray, would you let her do your banking?

After the Adam Ant comparison, I now have a vision of angry Moth bursting out of the caravan in full costume, and singing "Stand and deliver, your farmhouse to my wife."

Moth could do a good rendition, being a dandy highwayman himself :)

Or simply that people don’t want to come forward and invite media scrutiny.

One of the things that struck me in the Darwins’ case was that John Darwin, having faked his own death and secretly moved into a bedsit in a building they owned next door to the family home, was recognised by one of his tenants, who said ‘Aren’t you supposed to be dead?’ JD said ‘Don’t tell anyone about this’, and the tenant didn’t in fact go to the police ‘because he didn’t want to get involved’.

BC is still clearly appalled by having Daily Mail photographers parked outside his door, and it contributed, along with his obvious hurt and bewilderment at being betrayed by people he considered friends, to not wanting to actually speak on the podcast. You can’t blame people, really.

I think CH said at that last live event that the person who gave her the original tipoff that started her whole investigation hasn’t chosen to come forward, though I’m not sure whether that means she doesn’t actually know who they are, or just that they declined further involvement.

I know someone on here said they had an idea about who it might be, but I’m drawing a blank. Maxine Faramond? A family member? It had to be someone who knew their real names and where they’d lived in Wales, and who both knew that ‘Raynor Winn’, bestselling memoir author and media darling, was light-fingered Sally Walker from Pwllheli, and that there was a question mark over TW’s purported illness.

Was a bit poorly yesterday so watched THE film (thought the scenery might cheer me up). It just made me sad for the wasted opportunities. All that interest in poverty, homelessness and the goodwill from us their readers destroyed by their greed and denial. Noone is talking about it, we are just talking about the lies and thefts!

What an amazing advocate she could have been, there is nothing more powerful than a person who has been in difficulties and come out the other side.. especially as she had been shown such kindness by so many.

I think that's saddest part of the whole saga

This is such a good analysis of that photo, and the dynamic between the pair. This, along with the wedding photo (ft. That Suit practically as a third character) gives me major Svengali/ Trilby vibes ...

Still thinking of the new romantics, Karma Chameleon might be a good theme if they make a (genuinely) true film.

It's got to be 'Lies' by the Thompson Twins!

PS They don't make pop videos like that anymore!

It’s actually quite fascinating that he’s had recognisably the same dandyish look his whole life — the bandanas and cravats, the collarless shirts, polished shoes/boots, well-cut jackets, an general air of attention to his outfits etc. SW refers to him wearing an RAF greatcoat and collarless shirts when they first met. ‘Cecile’, his niece, remembers the bandanas, well-polished boots, collarless shirts etc from her childhood, and Debbie Hemings remembers him wearing moleskin trousers, cravats and smart gardening smocks he said were homemade by SW at the NCT property.

The idea of SW resting after a hard day of embezzlement at the sewing machine, labouring over TW’s chic gardening look, is mildly hilarious.

Who on earth wears moleskin trousers and a smock for a gardening job - so pretentious.

goes with the cream blue Aga, Beowulf, the French chateau and being mistaken for a wondering troubadour called Simon Armitage!

We could go back in time a bit, 'The kinks, 1965, He's a dedicated follower of fashion" they seek him here, they seek him there, he thinks he is a flower to be looked at :)

I suspect this photo taken posing on the scree was taken at the bottom of the Cuillin ridge. The actual ridge itself is a grade 3 climb and definitely not for the inexperienced. It really annoys me how inappropriately dressed they are. Sal’s skin tight jeans and trainers would have been hopeless. It’s idiots like this that mountain rescue teams end up risking their lives for.

You can be sure that Moth would come back at you with 'True' by Spandau Ballet!

"You're so vain, Carly Simon 1972", might be even more fitting :)

Let's also add to the soundtrack Petshop Boys (Money and Rent are both quite catchy), and Fleetwood Mac (Little Lies). There could be an interlude in which SA and CH comment like a Greek chorus, but to rap. I think it will be a bestseller.

I'm liking it already @Peladon, if for no other reason, than the sound track would be great, a bit with SA and CH rapping, would be priceless :)

He’s cosplaying sort of Vita Sackville-West meets Monty Don?

According to Esquire, ‘Allotment-core’ is a thing.

https://www.esquire.com/uk/style/a42686402/allotment-core-mens-style/

SA has his own band (Land YAcht Regatta) and has produced a couple of albums for Decca apparently! He is a fan of The Smiths. (I'm so miserable now etc)

Allotment-core! Where's a scornfully snorting emoji when you need one ... I can't bear this arch adding of '-core' as a suffix to everything fashion-related these days - cottage-core, prairie-core - I mean, what in the Vivienne Westwood is it supposed to mean?!

That's so funny @AbovetheVaultedSky, Moth has been doing this look for years. It made me laugh when RH said Moth wore gardening smocks, hand sewn by Sally. I agree with @GogleddCymru, we don't have the relevant emojis when we need them :)