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

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?

IANAL or a copyright specialist, but surely it can’t be protected against circulation, quoting, or sharing around as long as you’re crediting the author and not reproducing the whole thing? Otherwise book clubs and English Lit classes would be in trouble, as would book bloggers.

Towards the end of LL where they're on the outskirts of Bristol there's a chapter where TW has diarrhoea for a few days. They somehow manage to carry on walking and there are graphic descriptions of him squatting behind bushes and in the undergrowth - utterly gross. Why would anyone do this?. Even if you're ill in a tent surely the sensible thing would be to stay in one place.

Evening all. I'm not going to be around until late this evening at the earliest, so here is the charabanc's next destination:
Thread 24 : To feel disappointed - and now disgusted and vindicated too - after reading this in The Observer about the author and her husband from The Salt Path book and film? | Mumsnet

As usual, no posts please until this thread is full and I know I can count on one of you reposting the link nearer the end.

Please forgive any mistakes made. It was all done on the gallop!

The poosome twosome.

I wonder if CH is going to wait and see how things develop @DoubtfulCat, or pass the book on to another investigator covering this story.

You plopped that one in quick @Peladon :)

I couldn't hold it in, so had to do a "Moth".

It can absolutely be discussed & should be IMO - for reasons covered.

I have nothing to come back to you on that one, @Peladon my tank is empty :)

I agree @PinkPanther57, we would all like to know about the contents of HNTDDD. Thinking about it more, I suppose the difficulty for CH to make a podcast about HNTDDD, is that she can only say Raynor Winn hasn't denied writing it, at the moment. Maybe CH is going to wait and see if that changes somehow in the next few months, she would probably prefer, to be able to say that Raynor Winn, definitely wrote it?

Can she present as a bit of a mystery, flag dead sheep & mention Gangani directorship ‘coincidences’?

Chloe could make it a mystery, it's a good idea @PinkPanther57, that might work very well. Maybe when she has had a break, Chloe might think about doing something with it. I don't know when in the making of the podcast the book was found, it felt to me that Chloe was so excited to find the book, read it, her head spinning from what she had read. It seemed like she had little time to reflect on it, before the broadcast.

Perhaps a metaphor…!

Thank you for setting it all out so clearly @UpfromSomerset - and I went on to outline how MF had showed her mettle and that sneaky Sal had hidden behind her alias, in a way she shouldn't, on Companies House.

Thanks @Freshsocks as you have explained:
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.

I imagine there’s A LOT to unpack. Does CH read the threads?!

I don't think Chloe reads them herself @PinkPanther57, she has had a researcher looking at them, during her investigations. Now that she has finished, I don't expect Chloe will have anyone looking at them. There was a suggestion that Chloe was going to do a Q&A, after the podcast were broadcast, through MN on the threads, I don't know anymore about that though.

I would like to know more about that. I would very much like to know the statistics that prove that Chloe's investigation sent TSP back up the charts. I saw it picked up by the BBC in an article today.

HNTDDD is a big unpulled thread.

I want to know the diffinative truth about the book sales too @BewilderingBrandy, it just seems so disrespectful to be questioning what Chloe is saying. But we have had the most incredible correspondents, who have been proven right by Chloe's investigation. On this matter we don't have the same result, if Chloe has used a different method to calculate sales it would be good to know.

HNTDDD does feel like an unpulled thread @PinkPanther57.

Don't know if there is an answer to this question (perhaps for our authors?) - if someone got hold of a copy of HNTDDD, and self-published it under a different name, would the real name of the author come out or could someone sue under the name of Izzy Wyn-Thomas?

I've been looking at this question in the last couple of days, @RainyTuesdaysAndSunnyWednesdays , authors can in certain circumstances, take people to court under their pseudonym. So it might be possible, I wondered about this before, perhaps as a way to draw Salray out, but pseudonymity is really protected.

@Freshsocks "we have had the most incredible correspondents, who have been proven right by Chloe's investigation. On this matter we don't have the same result, if Chloe has used a different method to calculate sales it would be good to know."

Especially if that method is to take at face value a statement by a Penguin PR person. Their information might not be wholly reliable.

This is what concerns me @Peladon, I didn't think the ex PRH person was taking it all seriously enough, it concerns me that Chloe has been miss informed. I also felt it was conveying a sense that what Salray had done wasn't so bad, because people still wanted to buy the book, and put money in the pockets of all involved. It was kind of saying to Chloe, well you didn't succeed with your investigation, people don't care if it's true or not.

The book can still be legally discussed though, there’s definitely an ‘in’ here.

@Freshsocks I thought it came over like that at first but I've listened to more about it today. It is where Chloe and Amelia are examining why Penguin have not done anything more than their initial statement. Chloe is asking "Why isn't this coming from the top?" (of Penguin) and this is where Amelia says "Your investigation actually sent TSP back to the top of the bestseller chart".

So really the explanation why Penguin hasn't moved - they're still making money.

Thank you @BewilderingBrandy, I will have to listen to it again. It felt the reverse when Chloe was on the broadcast shared the next day, it seemed like Chloe was seeing the sales figures going up, though not her intention, as proof that her exposé had reached a large audience. If that is the case, will Chloe want the sales figures to have risen ?

I just listened to the 'We have notes' Spotify 14th Jan piece again, because I was concerned that I might have miss heard or misinterpreted what I heard. Chloe says that the sales 'spiked' when her exposé came out and she doesn't sound pleased about it, I think she might have followed with the word 'briefly'. I couldn't quite catch it, I couldn't rewind it. I feel bad for suggesting that Chloe might want the figures to have gone up, but I'm thinking of her professionally as an investigative journalist.