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

And IIRC, it was report3d thst the creditors who acquired the debt from "Cooper" finally got paid after the first Observer report.

Writer Raynor Winn reads 'Death Throes of a No-Man', a poem written by a St Petrocs client. This is the fifth Poem of the Week raising awareness of our campaign to end street homelessness in Cornwall. Over the winter we will be sharing a different poem each week which will be read by notable figures, exploring the themes that resonate with our campaign. Let's End Street Homelessness in Cornwall.

This was such a worthwhile cause and idea 7 years ago. It is a pity that Salray was never the member of the homeless community she claimed to be and that she didn't let the serious message of the St Petrocs client's poem speak for itself, choosing instead to ham it up with her Disgusted of Burton delivery.

No pressure, but if any posters can easily spare a few quid for the St Petrocs Winter Appeal 2025/2026, here is their website:
St Petrocs

It’s also just occurred to me that if it is a person who knows them from the past, they may have reason to be afraid of Tim. BC saw another side to him. They might be afraid of having their name revealed.

I was musing earlier on a piece of yoga philosophy which is guidance not to steal (also not to be violent, grasping, immoderate, or dishonest) and the way in which we often dive a bit deeper into the meanings of these terms. As I say to my classes, it’s quite easy [for most people] not to steal as in theft of items, money etc. But what is less easy to spot is the theft of other, more intangible items like time, joy, peace of mind. Sally and Tim have stolen so much more than money from so many more people than it may first appear.

Prompted by other musings on this thread, I was also thinking that anyone who was faecally incontinent would not be walking in remote areas with minimal equipment. They’d be one slow morning away from having an unusable tent and sleeping bags. Furthermore, as someone pointed out, getting up from a squat is quite challenging for people who don’t do that daily, and so how on earth would Tim have managed to toilet even if he’d been able to get outside and dig a hole? It’s not even about the walking, it’s even more basic than that. I call BS on the whole thing- the walks, and the illness.

Probably because they had the means to take her to court to get their money. Not a good look for a national treasure who has been misrepresented by the mean old Observer. She settled asap it seems. Odd she never thought to do so before OC’s expose!

Just for the record @DisappointedReader et al, I was not suggesting that Ms Farrimond or indeed anyone else was OC's original informant. It just amused me that when the podcast revealed Ms F's former occupation I felt that she would surely know how to deal with threatening mail and also a bailiffs knock - certainly not by hiding under the stairs!
The recent (print version) Observer article's timeline entry, dated 5th March 2025, simply refers to "a reader" who is questioning RW's "unflinchingly honest" claim re. her memoir - TSP.
Interesting also to note that it took "six months of shoe leather reporting" before the Observer team decided to publish OC's findings - not all, it was careful to state, but only info. that had passed the "unflinchingly honest" test - the Observers, that is!

Yes, wouldn't any right-thinking person have paid up as soon as they came into their first million? But she wasn't going to until the shit hit the fan, hanging on to her money for grim death but not doing the obvious thing and sinking at least some of it into property...

I receive PIP for both elements - daily living and mobility, at the lower level.
I think I should be entitled to more, but the mysterious ways of PIP have colluded against me. In fact, at my last hearing, the judge, becoming annoyed at me, asked “well if it’s the case that you can’t do x, and you couldn’t do it last time you applied, then why weren’t you awarded any points for it?” An excellent question, which I do not know the answer to. He awarded the same; perhaps I should write to him and find out why in case the next judge asks me.

My opinion - I don’t think there is a lot of PIP fraud, although there might be some. There was a recent case of a man found to be playing cricket, and he’s being asked to repay thousands claimed “fraudulently”.
He has a job and a prosthetic leg. He had previously been a keen cricketer and on the occasion of a local charity match, he played, knowing it would cause pain and problems for days after with his stump, and stop him using his prosthesis for a bit whilst the stump healed. But he wanted to play, he knew it would ruin his week but he was ok with that. Now he’s a “fraud”.

I have a fluctuating condition which sees me in bed most of the day, but I can go to the shops once a week and consequently I’m assessed as being able to cook a full meal daily (I can’t). I would get lost in unfamiliar areas, hence I don’t visit them alone, but I don’t get those points either (not sure why). PIP assesses physical tasks and mental tasks, so you could be physically fit, but have dementia and so get PIP. Or you could be immobile but sharp as a tack. If you’re unlucky like me, you can have fatigue which affects both but the mental side is dismissed because “you answer the questions at the hearing ok”.

You could spend months and years getting to know the ins and outs of PIP, and still not fully understand why decisions are made as they are.

I would absolutely not be surprised if I was accused of fraud, being “caught out” doing something I generally can’t (but occasionally can) do.

For all the rules on PIP of needing to do something when required, safely, repeatedly to an acceptable standard no more than twice as long as it would take an able person, you say you can do something only once and that’s it, you can do it and the rest be damned.

I don’t know whether Tim gets PIP, or whether he should, or whether it’s fraudulent. It’s impossible for someone outside looking in to know. You could see me in Tesco and think “well she seems fine” of course I do. The other 6 days of the week you won’t see me, because that’s when I’m not fine!

a bit of a rant, sorry.
PIP annoys me because they invented a system of rules and tests which are quite particular and difficult, not intuitive, then they don’t play by their own rules.

@LetsBeSensible Reminds me a little bit of my lovely uncle (now sadly long gone). He was turned down for a Blue Badge because he could walk the required distance (which was then the deciding factor, I don't know if it still is). It took him four hours, but the argument was that he COULD walk it...

He gave up driving after that, to the detriment of his wellbeing, because he couldn't walk from a car park to where he needed to be.

I think you are right @BewilderingBrandy, the chickens were coming home to roost. I realise that you are not trying to out anyone, just commenting on what we have learned from Chloe's investigations. The point at which MF, got in touch with BC, adding to the growing doubts and investigations by Ruth Saberton. When those three people shared their information with one another, it must have been a revelation for them all.

Also, what names did they use for the tenancy agreement with BC? If it was Raynor Winn, or Tim using anything other than their real names, then I think that is an offence. BC said at one point he wanted to sign the house over, how could he have done that without knowing their real names. Maybe Tim was so angry, because he realized they couldn't take the farm from BC because of their assumed names.

It would also be interesting to find out which name 'Issy Winn-Thomas' was paid any royalties into for HNTDDD. You can have all the pen names you like, but your publisher has to have your actual legal name in order to pay you.

Not that 'Gangani' would be likely to reveal that information, of course...

I think that's one of the most depressing things -- there is so much homelessness and insecurely-housed poverty in Cornwall. I'd only ever been there on holiday, but when a friend moved to Falmouth and I started spending more time there, including some of the more deprived areas, it was an eye-opener.

Discovering that the poster boy and girl for Cornish homelessness were just pretending because it made for a better book hook is pretty galling, especially when they've used so many (real or fictional?) homeless people as hard-hitting 'background' for their own endeavours, especially when saintly TW is presented as being Lady Bountiful to some street homeless men in TSP.

Or that infuriating and almost certainly entirely fictional bit in TWS where the Walkers start talking to a bunch of homeless people on the street in Truro and SW asks them if they were given secure housing whether it would be

hard to go inside after living outside for so long? And what about other people – do you think you’d find it easy to slip back into normality, that you’d just be able to interact with people in the same way you did before you were homeless?’

Actually, as I look at that, I realise that this may well be only semi-fictitious, but if she did have the gall to ask homeless people in Truro this question, it was almost certainly purely for research. Because that's what she's pretending in TWS, that she's having difficulties adjusting to living under a roof again, and has to pitch their tent in the bedroom.

Which is ethically absolutely disgusting. To be 'researching' the psychology of the fallout of homelessness, so you can get content for a follow up to your bestseller about pretend homelessness.

How very sad about your uncle @Vroomfondleswaistcoat ! 😞

@DoubtfulCat your musings while at yoga have me thinking about the hypocrisy of Sally Walker having anything to do with wellness retreats and healing or guidance, talking about being the wind and the land when her deeds have always been so rooted in materialism. Claiming to need the womb like comfort of a tent to sleep in because a room in a house is something that suddenly causes her anxiety. I would say Guilt … but guilt would have stopped her. Instead she carried on and on.

Totally agree with you @AbovetheVaultedSky . Perfectly put. It’s like she was mining people for information, exploiting again!

Has this one been added yet ti the alternative film soundtrack?

There were some tales from ex-street homeless people, of putting up their tent inside their flat. Not because of some romantic notion, or even a difficulty adjusting to indoors, but because they couldn’t afford heating and the tent kept in some warmth, rather than trying to heat a whole room.

SalRay may well have appropriated the “tent” part without knowing the full reason, or maybe she just adapted it. Either way, I don't believe her.

That is really interesting @LetsBeSensible and the practical reason behind it makes perfect sense.

Does anyone know if Sal wrote/said the chapel only had 1 bedroom?

This has always been the problem @Vroomfondleswaistcoat, whenever we tried to think of a way to find out the real identity of IWT. Only the publisher knows the real identity, even if the publisher wasn't Tim, they cannot reveal it without the authors permission, it is still the problem with finding out legally the real identity of IWT, their pseudonymity protects them. Even if Sally is IWT as we suspect, Sally can just sit on it.

How protected is an authors work? do you have to seek the permission of an author to serialise their book, or print extracts? There are only a few copies of HNTDDD, if CH has a copy can she give it to a book club to review for instance ?

What a jolly tune for us @Peladon :)
I've been on and off the charabanc for the last few days, sometimes only managing to jump on the running board, grabbing some fudge and getting left behind again. So many great posts, I agree about PIP and that Salray missed the point @LetsBeSensible. It is depressing @AbovetheVaultedSky no one seems to be properly addressing homelessness.

I feel like it may have featured in the “A Street Cat Named Bob” but don’t have a copy to hand to check. I briefly worked in the field years ago and heard the same.

I think it merits a podcast at least. It can absolutely be discussed and paraphrased. It makes me cross this prize was deceptively won & other writers lost out. Of course it’s ‘them’ and most don’t know about this book in this sorry saga. It’s glossed over. It’s important too as it shows other deception in their ‘true’ memoir.

Disability Living Allowance (DLA)

I wouldn't imagine the flat in the chapel was very big. I live in a terraced house and there's absolutely no way I could pitch a two person tent in my bedroom. The bed and other furniture take up all the space.

I agree @PinkPanther57 it would be so good if HNTDDD could feature in a podcast, or some form that could be shared. If CH isn't going to do a podcast or use HNTDDD, I wonder what she is going to do with it? It would be such a shame if CH just puts it on a bookshelf.

I still have copies of both books but can’t remember. I’ll check.