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]

NO POSTS PLEASE UNTIL THREAD 22 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?

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

Times 2022 interview doesn't say whether canteen crowded or not:

Raynor
I was 17 and in the busy sixth-form college canteen when I spotted a young man dipping a Mars bar into a cup of tea. I thought, “What a very strange thing to do,” and then he looked up and I saw his incredible blue eyes. As I left the room his gaze on me was one of those heart-stopping moments in life. I was besotted.

And again, here she is on the north coast of Devon - still mesmerised by Mars bar Moth:

Hobbling homelessly through Lynton, there was still something about the way he ate a Mars bar that could lift my spirit in an instant.

I’ve set aside the idea that Sal is controlled by Tim (mostly); but in that sort of relationship of course pregnancies can be another means of control. Trapping a woman in the home and the relationship, sabotaging her career prospects, creating another lever to use to manipulate her emotionally. Maybe he didn’t want her bettering herself because he liked having her there to make him posh gardening smocks? Maybe he didn’t like the idea of her being more highly qualified or earning more than him?

In a world that contained Norma Waterson and contains June Tabor (for eg) it is yet more Emperor's (Empress's) new clothes, isn't it?

I had 1960s speech therapy (being made to speak while having your tongue held down with a lolly stick thing, hours of having to practise words into a recorder and repeat over and over again when you got it wrong) It was apparently down to my tongue tie being missed for quite a while and thus first learning to speak with it, a lisp and rhotacism resulting. I rebelled quite quickly and refused to cooperate with therapy (I was about 6) and in later years worked myself to make it almost indistinguishable most of the time. I have been told what's left sounds like an affectation which it certainly isn't. It tends to be more obvious when very tired or stressed but still slight.

I'm very close to Salray in age and do wonder how much of this process she went through. I don't think the rhotacism is 'put on' but the gasping breathing I can't explain and that and the general vocal tone is not good enough for performance, IMHO.

But this says “busy”. Which implies they weren’t alone.
when I get time I’ll listen again and will share how she describes it (if I can bear it)

Do we think that she walked for OWH in December 2024 or January 2025, please?

All the while renovating a house down to the bare walls and digging up the garden to be self-sufficient good lifers. It could almost be a game of how many tropes and stereotypes can one cram into a podcast.

Someone correct me if i am wrong, but in TWS does he not lose a tooth when eating a mars bar in Iceland? How disappointed Sal must have been to see the famous Moth- eating-a -mars-bar event suddenly lose its appeal.

Aah, the 'favourite cups of tea' piece might explain the prominence of the Twinings box in the photo of their ridiculously small amount of kit. I did wonder what on earth it was doing there and why the unnecessary packaging hadn't been stripped out to minimise weight and bulk. (I happen to know the teabags are sealed in several foil packets inside the box!) But it's a nice little bit of product placement with potential...

This. A scam artist who began by stealing a huge amount from her own mother. A parallel story. Definitely a similar mindset. Worth watching.

I’m very much like this, but gave the £1 trial a go - and cancelling is very easy, you don’t have to email or anything, it is just in account settings, you just switch off the auto-renew option. You can do it the next day, and you still get your month’s access. I was keen to see if I enjoyed access to the observer, and whether I will keep the account going afterwards, so am going to see how much I use it :)

Good point about the tea, it is in foil packets so no need to keep it in the box. A wonder we don't have a carefully positioned Mars Bar next to it.

Sorry everyone - I think that rather than cast doubt on the origin story, I've just unearthed yet another college canteen anecdote. I've listened carefully and I think they are talking about their first ever conversation - which is probably different from that first sighting of Moth dipping his Mars bar. it goes like this:

Tim: What was your most memorable cup of tea?
Sal: That's not hard. Its that very first time I actually ever spoke to you.
I was in the canteen, well you know you were there! I was in that college canteen -I was sitting there having a cup of tea on my own, completely on my own in that entire college canteen
Tim: well there were tea ladies there as well
Sal: but other than the tea ladies... and you walked in, and I was completely panicked because I'd been managing to dodge you for days, but there I was in that room, empty room, and you walked in and you got a cup of tea…and you looked around the room as if you were going to choose where you were going to sit, and then you looked at me sitting in the corner and you walked across the room and I nearly had a heart attack by the time you walked across to the table, and you said is anybody sitting here? And then I should probably have said yes but then you sat down and for the whole 20 mins of that break... we talked about religion, politics, tea drinking and walking

Anyway, this bonus addition to the LL audiobook is hardly riveting stuff - just Sal and Tim chatting over tea; but there's lots of mentions of all the buzz words: Iceland, Cornwall, Scotland, Mars Bars, Tea, Biscuits, Nature....You do get to hear Moth quite a bit and he comes across well: very jovial and twinkly - while she giggles, flirts and enthuses about the path. The whole thing seems like a PR exercise in being relatable and homely while also namechecking parts of the walks.

I'm probably going to have nightmares now about being trapped in their kitchen.

I was all alone in that empty, but also very busy, room.

Here is another version, which seems to fit in with your transcript above @Anythingbutheadlands - except it would be 1973 if the book has just come out (she would be 10 years old):

When I first met Moth, I was a teenager. It was a long time ago, and I even now I can remember sitting in the college canteen having our very first conversation. The Coast to Coast walk had just been designated as a walk, you know, and Wainwright's book had just appeared, and I can remember Moth talking about it. He was so excited, saying this will be a fantastic thing to do. I really want to do this thing. So our very first conversation was straight into this. We really wanted to do it throughout our life together; it was something we were always going to do together, but then a downturn in his health meant we didn’t do it. So I ended up doing it alone. (Muddy Stilettos, Cornwall 27 June 2025)

I must say I am enjoying this college canteen gathering...

Here is another visit to it, this time written/recounted by Moth in a Times magazine piece, Nov 2022.

When I first laid eyes on Raynor, this bushy blonde-haired gem of a girl who was laughing with her friends in the college canteen, I thought, “Jeepers. That’s it. Love at first sight.” It’s a cliché but elementally that’s exactly what happened to me that day.

ETA. In same piece Raynor wrote/said:

I was 17 and in the busy sixth-form college canteen when I spotted a young man dipping a Mars bar into a cup of tea. I thought, “What a very strange thing to do,” and then he looked up and I saw his incredible blue eyes. As I left the room his gaze on me was one of those heart-stopping moments in life. I was besotted.

https://archive.ph/qK8uj

January 2025, according to IG posts

I think there were 2 canteen encounters. A first, busy one with the mars bar and clocking one another. And a second, empty one where they spoke for the first time (cramming in politics, religion, Coast to Coast walk etc in 20 mins)

We always just smoked in our college canteen

Times have changed. Where I work, a few students buy coffee in the canteen, more get hot chocolate, and the vast, vast majority get cold drinks like Coke or bring cans of Monster. None of them seem to drink tea!

Not much point in Mars bar dipping, then!
Coincidentally, our daughter and boyfriend (now engaged) have just returned from Edinburgh where they both sampled a deep-fried Mars bar. So it's not a myth, as I mistakenly thought

I realise that I just find it very difficult to imagine SW and TW having a conversation together, though I think what I probably mean is that I can’t imagine them having a private conversation that’s not some kind of monetisable furthering of the Raymoth brand, recorded, hitting the familiar beats: meet cute, tea, mutual devotion, wild spirits, nature, walking, losing everything but having each other etc etc.

When in fact their conversations must often have been (and still must be) incredibly fraught — about cover ups, money, debt, thefts, lies, evasions, sticking to the same story, pretence of illness, another flit etc etc.

It comes back to how we know a lot about SW’s activities now, because she’s the one doing the thieving (as far as we know), being arrested, skipping bail, writing confessions, writing the books, doing press, issuing statements etc etc. But the brand would be nothing without TW’s frail dying stoicism and collusion, and how do you steal £25k from your DH’s parents and not tell him, especially when you put the money in his account?

(The confession email says that when she stole the money from TW’s parents, she’d been unaware they’d just given a large sum to his brother, but it’s not clear what she means, whether that would have been justification for the theft if she’d known (because she and TW deserved their share?), or if it was only because they’d given away a lot of money that they noticed the theft sooner?

Having grown up as a tea drinker from early childhood, I started university in 1990, and immediately turned to coffee, which everyone drank in industrial quantities.

Not sure about coffee at university but I do remember Pro Plus caffeine tablets in the run up to and during exams at school.

Late night greetings again from me. I hope you are well. I'm here catching up with you all with a bowl of pasta as my very belated supper tonight. I spent a bit of time today out on the wily, windy moors where we live, with only cows sheltering in the gorse bushes I passed for company. For once it wasn't raining and the sunset was marvellous as I hurried back down in the last of the light towards home.

Time for another contribution to the thread song list and an excuse for a thread singalong/best impressions, in homage and with sincerest apologies to Kate Bush. It was whispered on the wind to me today. I might have sung it to the cows. I imagined a certain frizzy-haired blonde/grey mealy-mouthed woman in the video instead of Kate. To set the scene, it is Salray's return from her alleged solo ramble for OWH:

Whopping Lies

Out on the wily, windy moors
We'd roll and fall in green
You had a temper like my jealousy
Too hot, too greedy

How could I leave you
When I needed to possess you?
I batch fed you, I loved you, too

Bad dreams in the night
They told me you were going to lose the fight
Leave behind my Wh-o-pping, Wh-o-pping
Wh-o-pping Lies

Timmoth, it's me, I'm Sally
I've come home, I'm so cold
Let me in your window

Timmoth, it's me, I'm Sally
I've come home, I'm so cold
Let me in your window

Ooh, it gets dark, it gets lonely
On the other side from you
I pine a lot, I find the lot
Falls through without you

I'm coming back love, cruel Timmoth
My one dream, my only master

Too long I roam in the night
I'm coming back to his side to put it right
I'm coming home to wh-o-pping, wh-o-pping
Wh-o-pping Lies

Timmoth, it's me, I'm Sally
I've come home, I'm so cold
Let me in your window

Timmoth, it's me, I'm Sally
I've come home, I'm so cold
Let me in your window

Ooh, let me have it
Let me grab your fudge away
Ooh, let me have it
Let me grab your fudge away

You know it's me, Sally
Timmoth, it's me, I'm Sally
I've come home, I'm so cold
Let me in your window

Timmoth, it's me, I'm Sally
I've come home, I'm so cold
Let me in your window

Timmoth, it's me, I'm Sally
I've come home, I'm so cold

Songwriters: Kate Bush and DisappointedReader. For non-commercial use only.