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

Will look. Thank you!

The ironic takeaway from HNTDDD seems to be that despite purportedly being a novel, it’s far more accurate about the farrago of financial mismanagement, compulsive thieving and coverups that led up to TSP than the ‘unflinchingly honest’ TSP.

It was also discussed on thread 22 p34 onwards

It's my turn to be on the naughty step: "Mum, why are there 5 empty FOF wrappers in my Christmas tub of Heroes?".

My son the miniature charabancer has taken a brief pause from the fudge and fruit shoots to ask if the naughty lady who lied has been arrested yet. He couldn't understand why SW stole the money as usually 'girls are more sensible.' I told him to go to sleep and I would answer in the morning. Some witty and child friendly responses to his ponderings would be most greatly received 💕 🤣

@DisappointedReader I'm going to openly declare that I really don't like the term 'internet sleuths'. For me it has negative connotations and our threads are such a positive environment with all the necessary reasonable boundaries in place. Yes there's a lot of fact-finding and information-examining, one or two of us might fit the 'sleuths' bill - not mentioning any names! - but we are also a broad church and a lot more than that. As the bottom line I think an interest in fairness, honesty and decency is what ultimately brought, and has kept, most if not all of us here.
@Vroomfondleswaistcoat This. I think the drive by scolders and also some others in the doubting community have us down as a bunch of argumentative harpies, wanting to scour the depths of the books to enable us to seize on any discrepancy with a jubilant cry. But really I think most of us are just outraged on behalf of all those duped, deceived and defrauded and also a little angry with the blythe insouciance of the publishers, agents and advertisers. We want justice. We want this pair to stop being hailed as great saviours and be derided as the great swindlers that they are. And for them to stop profiting from their 'unflinching truthful' lies.
@Freshsocks I don't like the term internet sleuths either. I'm not sure what this piece is going to be about and how posters will be represented.
@AbovetheVaultedSky I agree. I won’t be engaging, as I suspect it will be some kind of mildly demeaning piece about lonely chat forum women enjoying some kind of obsessive witch-hunt as an escape from suburban tedium and thwarted lives. I hope I’m wrong.
@Uricon2 I do think that it is unlikely to be a hatchet piece on the charabancers, though. Our Chloe never needed to acknowledge these threads at all, don't think anyone would have given that a thought, but she has and been positive.

I'm going to talk to Our Chloe and Phoebe about the concerns. What I've already heard from OC is that she's keen to acknowledge us and give our threads and posters the credit they deserve (especially as this wasn't as clear as it could have been in Ep 2) and posters privacy will be respected. It's also a way of giving a voice to more posters, allowing a more accurate representation of who we are as an online community than the podcast. It sounded slightly different from Phoebe, who also said posters' privacy will be respected but described the piece to me as being 'about internet sleuths and The Salt Path'. The post on her behalf from MNHQ today said: 'The idea is to look at the role of sleuths on forums like Mumsnet when stories like this happen! I would love to be able to chat to some of the main posters on the Salt Path threads about how they go about it and why they enjoy it/ get involved'.

I would love to watch the Escape to the Country episode that featured the Walkers/Winn’s house in Wales. Is anyone able to send me a link that will work given that I am not in the UK and do not have a VPN?
Failing that, could you send me the Series and Episode numbers, as from time to time episodes are uploaded to You Tube?

Someone definitely linked to it on a previous thread, because I’ve seen it, but I couldn’t begin to remember which.

You could tell him that even with limitless threads and a lifetime supply of fudge, not even a group of clever grown ups could ever understand why the glum lady stole the money. It might also be something to tell him that the man who has hair like he's seen a ghost is also very naughty, but thinks no one will notice if he hides in the background and pretends to be a poet.

[ETA - the poster formerly known as AllFrothNoMoth (no surname Madonna or Moth) etc etc.

I have been looking out for you, in whatever guise, since we got the Mumsnet message about Phoebe. I hope you have had a chance to read it because you really must be included.

I would like to thank you for your patience throughout the threads as the rest of us often 'catch up' and you have been so generous with explaining things carefully.

There you go! It’s the first house.

That was a great explanation for our youngest charabanc fudge consumer @YourMoneyforFrothingandYourChipsforFree you have carefully explained things to me many times too, thank you. So often you are a step further, the other day Sally's wages, I hadn't thought about that at all :)

Just back from the local cinema (no, not "The Salt Path") and have tried very hard to keep up with developments.
Firstly I get the impression that Chloe H has only a vague idea of what Mumsnet is all about - it would perhaps be a good idea if she explained that the huge number of posts on MN relating to TSP have arisen as a response to a specific AIBU, that raised concerns about TSP. Perhaps like me she has no idea of the meaning of AIBU? I admit that I had to look it up!
As regards clotted cream/jam or jam/clotted cream, the folks in Somerset don't appear to have a preference. Stayed on an Exmoor farm, aged around 10, where they made cream for their own consumption (it was a sheep farm). As well as making clotted cream sandwiches they plastered it on Weetabix at supper time.

Thank you, I just sent a gmail

Another thought on “the Cider couple” whilst it does sound like TimMoth let his mask slip, I do also wonder whether he was trying to scare the younger couple as well. They wouldn’t be poking their noses in unannounced after that display.

Thank you so much ItsNotYourUsername
I’m watching it now
MN people are amazing!

I’m a wee bit behind, running to catch up from the last thread, but wanted to post while I remember- I still find it very odd that there was ever a diagnosis of CBD in the first place. My DH is a doctor (although not neuro) and he nor his colleagues would never give someone a terminal diagnosis if it wasn’t absolutely certain/ necessary. And presumably as Tim-mothy had had symptoms for six years prior to diagnosis how could the doctor possibly think it was CBD? Sounds like someone’s telling fibs, surprise surprise.

@YourMoneyforFrothingandYourChipsforFreethankyou! Showing him Sally the thief was one thing, but introducing the pretend poet who believes he’s Simon Armitage—has completely derailed him. He’s now less concerned with stolen fudge and fruit shoots and more troubled by why a man can look that much like a poet without actually being one. The hair alone has raised questions he isn’t emotionally ready to ask. For now, the fudge thief is silent, pondering identity, fraud, and fringe choices/ playing mario kart.

Good morning? You are another one I was looking for. At the beginning of the last thread I made available a link to the story you shared about the NZ scammer who came to Wales. Many of us read it and saw the Sal parallels so thanks very much.

10 books that should never have been published!

The Salt Path and nine other books that should never have been published

I think it might be kinder to him (and set him up firmly for the future) to explain that some people might look nice and you might not believe that they are capable of bad things, but you can be badly surprised by even the most innocuous looking person. You might then need to explain innocuous, but an expansion of the vocabulary is always a good thing.

And I think we well understood WHY she did it. Because she could. Because she wanted it, she saw it and she didn't imagine that she'd get caught.

Absolute shocking comments in the podcasts from members of Sal and Tim's family who in many ways seem remarkably forgiving. One can only wonder how S&Ts own grown up children have taken the revelations of how their parents have acted. I do feel sorry for them .

You have prompted me to remember Whatever Wanda Wanted by Jude Wisdom. My family and I listened to it on tape and every time it said Whatever Wanda Wanted we would chant Wanda got!

I also think they chose CBD deliberately as it’s a collection of symptoms and therefore quite subjective for a long time- and they expected to have moved on by the time people wanted some objective evidence. It’s not familiar to most people so most will accept anything they say about it.

I think this because in one of the consultant letters it refers to “atypical anal sphincter disturbance” or something along those lines, and I suspect that they’d tried to be too clever and invented symptoms not associated with CBS. I really don’t believe he has anything wrong with him apart from getting older, and more importantly being a nasty piece of work.

It makes me think of my dad, a lovely, kind, hardworking man who would do anything for us, but pretend he was going to refuse (requests like picking up his eldest daughter from a party in the wilds of rural Gloucestershire after midnight on a Friday or Saturday night). His excuse was always the same: “Oh I can’t do that. I’ve got a bone in my leg.” Say it quickly enough and people are nodding in acceptance before their brains have had time to catch up and go, “hang on a minute-!”

If only TimMoth’s excuses had been as lighthearted as my dad’s.

@DoubtfulCat And having seized upon CBD, then he would HAVE to find a miracle 'cure' or relief for his symptoms because, even if TSP hadn't been mega successful, there would be readers who would, periodically, be asking after Tim's health. Sal couldn't pretend that he died - too many witnesses - or that he was now seriously disabled. So she'd have to come up with some reason for Tim still being around and evidently still quite capable.

So the walk could NEVER have been 'coming to terms with a terminal diagnosis.' Because she wouldn't be able to talk her way out of him still being around.