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.

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I think I read about a shortlist & other contenders so a quick recap & vote on those? So many writers don’t get recognition they deserve or enough £.

I know. I am one of them. That is why I've spent however many threads asking for the CB prize to be taken away from Sal. I just think the logistics of reawarding it might be beyond them though.

The injustice really rankles all round.

Also that none of them could possibly have missed an entrance because they were on their phone because there’s no signal anywhere near the stage at the Minack (which makes total sense, given the terrain).

That episode has always seemed totally fictional to me, even before understanding why SW might have been trying to pretend they were somewhere they weren’t, or at a time they weren’t (see also SA plotline) — quite apart from SW being terrible at dialogue in general, her student actors converse in a weird, stereotyped someone’s-idea-of-Cambridge-luvvies diction. No one talks like that. That’s the lazy imaginings of someone who thinks Cambridge students don’t just talk like students. For God’s sake, SW had two student-aged children!

They would still need to have legal proof that Sally wrote HNTDDD. When we discussed the change on Wikipedia describing TSP, it was said that a Wikipedia editor, can change the information, if they have a credible source. HNTDDD is cited with a reference to a Chloe article. Chloe said Sally has not denied writing HNTDDD, she can say this, because the listing is there and Sally has not denied it.

However unfair it is, how can the CB people do anything unless Sally admits to being the author. The prize should go to someone else, preferably you@Vroomfondleswaistcoat :)

Also, first book aside, it is worth considering that it was originally judged on its merit as a "feel good" true-to-life memoir of an inspirational journey. Would it have swayed judges if they had known it was largely a pack of lies? They were conned. So should the prize still stand? Sportspeople who cheat are stripped of their awards, why not authors?

But doesn’t she admit in one of her statements that they ran a raffle because they were desperate? The raffle being buy a book and win the heavily mortgaged house. I imagine a good lawyer would be able to use this as evidence that she had previously written another book. A forensic language expert would easily be able to pick out the parallels between HNTDDD and TSP. CH mentions the Mars bar episode, which is one of Sally’s little darlings, and I’m sure there are many more.

@Peladon posted this last night, I don't know if it was seen.
Maybe there could be a way, that they could take the prize away, as you say, @YourMoneyforFrothingandYourChipsforFree, just by the fact that it is being discredited, rather than taking it away because it wasn't her first book.

Did anyone ever figure out what the five-year old comment on this site meant (if anything!)?

https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10165165548860371&id=100064845123743

I’ve said it before but a podcast episode to draw attention to HNTDDD might be a starting point. How does it end, do we know? Any redemption arc for Elias?

Sorry, not sure why the link hasn't worked. It was a Penguin facebook entry about TSP, which had varioua negative comments. One of the comments, made five years ago and liked by three people, was the question: "How many homes have you stolen Sacha and Avi?". Very odd.

I think that SW is just trying to locate them at a particular place and time on the path, looked up what was playing at the Minack at the time they’re supposed to have been in the area, and wrote a deeply unconvincing pretence of having attended Iolanthe.

Apparently they didn’t know where they were, overlooked all the Minack signage, thought people parking in the field was ‘outdoor bingo’, were given tickets by a stranger, couldn’t really follow the opera, and then engage in the world’s least likely dialogue, where the cast of Iolanthe mysteriously leave the theatre in costumes and hairnets and say things like ‘Jill, Jill, what are we to do? These poor people need somewhere to camp; we must save them from the tempest!’ and exchange camp witticisms about forgetting their lines and loving the limelight.

I mean, these people are students. Teenagers and early 20somethings at university. Who talk like teenagers and early 20somethings. If the Walkers had actually met them, they’d probably have been reminded of their own kids!

(The Cambridge Gilbert and Sullivan Society does a show at the Minack annually, and they’re doing Iolanthe again in mid-September 2026! Maybe it could be a charabanc outing ahead of the (possible) publication of OWH?😀)

Tickets go on sale next month!

quite apart from SW being terrible at dialogue in general, her student actors converse in a weird, stereotyped someone’s-idea-of-Cambridge-luvvies diction. No one talks like that. That’s the lazy imaginings of someone who thinks Cambridge students don’t just talk like students.

I agree. But I think it’s a combination of both SW writing poor dialogue and her always wanting to be seen as a charmingly unconventional hippy and a poor vulnerable underdog.

With this in mind, she presumably wants to present the Cambridge students as unnecessarily privileged and out-of-touch, and very much part of the Establishment. And the fact they are student actors further reinforces their privilege, as instead of getting a summer part-time job to fund their Cambridge degree, they are flouncing around wearing silly costumes and pretending to be other people. Meanwhile, poor SW and TW have to walk for their lives, with nothing but the clothes on their book and their cherished copy of Beowulf.

To really ram home this stereotype, SW gives the Cambridge students some very pretentious dialogue which, to some people, will just confirm completely unfounded suspicions of how Oxbridge students interact with people.

Thinking of the book ‘Avi Cantor has six months to live’ by Sacha Lamb. Spoiler - he doesn’t.

[Spoiler alert EP7]

CH says its ending is very similar to TSP in that they lose their home but Elias is accepting of it because she realises that Baxter is her home. In TSP RW wrote that Moth was her "home" as long as they were together. It's said by GA in the movie too.

I really hope Chloe has looked/is looking into that.

@Fandango52 : "instead of getting a summer part-time job to fund their Cambridge degree, they are flouncing around wearing silly costumes and pretending to be other people". Thanks - that made me laugh.

The argument isn't so much against the merit of the book. It's the fact that a second or subsequent book is likely to be 'better' than a first because it will have had the advantage of being written and edited with the experience of the first book in mind.

For example, I now 'edit' myself as I write because, with the experience of nearly 30 published novels under my belt, I know what works and what doesn't work in my field of fiction. It wouldn't be fair to judge one of my books against someone else's first novel, because they have only one book's worth of experience. Most writers get better the more they write, which is why first book awards are a thing. If you've already put a book out, you know all about the editing process, what readers like and dislike, you've got reviews or readers' comments on that book to help you to structure and pace your next book.

@Freshsocks I am prepared to change my name and call my next book my first, if it means I'm in with a shout at ten grand. I have no shame (and even less pride).

Thanks for that. Interesting that th3 comment was made five years ago, very far before any of the investigative journalism. I wonder what the reference to homes was about.

Absolutely. See also her glumwashing imaginary conversation with an audience member whose father was apparently involved in building the Minack while Rowena Cade just gave orders to her underlings. Just like evil slavedriver Polly did to poor, dying Moth.

In fact, if SW had actually ever bothered to even skim the plot section of the Wiki entry for Iolanthe, which I don't think she did, she'd have seen she could have Driven The Message Of Their Own Humble Righteousness Home Even Harder with all that satire at the expense of the Establishment and 'virtue is only found in lowly cottages' stuff.

Also, odd that she only seems to notice cast members dressed as fairies, innkeepers and shepherds, as half the solo parts and half the chorus are members of the House of Lords, and usually wear evening dress throughout...?

I just found the comment and clicked on the user name "Nest Angel Green" who posted it. I don't think it has anything to do with anything. They seem a little unhinged and there are several posts on their page about someone called Sacha Stone who they appear to be rather obsessed about (in a negative way). SS appears to be a new age "infuencer" and conspiracy theorist according to wikipedia.

Sure, my point was not negating the fact of the second book being beneficial, but adding to it.

I think they're talking about Sacha Lamb, the author of the novel they're referencing -- seems to specialise in queer and trans romances set in Jewish communities.

Not according to their facebook page. They have links to the Sacha Stone I mentioned.

Thought that was Sacha Lamb (?) odd that Avi, has ‘six months to live’. He doesn’t. Coincidence?