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

I've just heard from Phoebe, please all who have sent emails check your inbox, because of use of names. I've asked now for my MN username to be used.

ETA hit me with a haddock and call me Salray!😂

Will certainly hit you with a damp squid and call you Salray!

The cardiac issues may not be that serious. I know they’re mentioned in the 2025 medical
letter but I’d have thought the consultant writing the letter would have included a diagnosis if one had been made. I know TW was admitted to hospital briefly following the 2024 Thames Path walk and he was unable to participate in the London marathon that year. There was a photo of him in hospital on Sal’s instagram looking the picture of health but that was one of a number of posts she deleted.

I'm so glad that you emailed @Uricon2, I really enjoy your contributions, don't mention your visitations though :)

Probably been discussed on here before but I do find the photo of Moth and Sal on the day after their wedding, climbing the Cuillins of Skye, deeply weird. Moth is wearing a neckerchief, a tweed jacket and shorts. This is not an average joe!

The New Romantics or a new level in narcissism?

Good point, 'cardiac issues' is the usual level of vagueness. My recent diagnosis is a lot more specific than such after tests.

Speaking as a former fully fledged New Romantic c 1980, he is, she's definitely not, based on that photo. Maybe Salray was always on catchup with the Infinite Wonder that is Timoth, at least in her eyes.

PS not many of our kin went in for hiking, AFAIK, because we were Exotic Creatures of the Night (in our minds anyway!)

This is why I was thinking of how it may affect people and wanting to know the procedure. I suppose our posts are just taken as public, which is understandable.

Yes we have had a lot of discussions about Moth the dandy (have you seen his wedding suit?) so it was particularly satisfactory to hear the family members talking about his penchant for bandanas and boots in the podcasts!

Stand and deliver!

Tim has flung down his day pack and is posing, sultry, effortlessly nonchalant hand on knee and hand on hip, very much like a New Romantic. Sal, meanwhile is looking somewhat downtrodden and submissive. Plus ca change.

Who the photographer was (the best man?) is anybody's guess!

I suspect Tim could have been a male model - better money than a gardener at Plas-yn-Rhws? Maybe insecure Sal, decided, in her wisdom, that Tim was better advised staying at home (doing sweet FA.)

She would keep him in the style to which he was accustomed, by hook or by crook......

Just looked at companies house to see what was happening there
The company was Emmaus Cornwall, which was a charity, so she was also a trustee for a year.
An undischarged bankrupt cannot become a director, or a charity trustee. Maybe they wanted to avoid going bankrupt so they could have started a company if that suited their plans.
Bad for a company to have dishonest directors. Appalling for a charity
The charity seems to be in the process of being shut down. But her term on the trustee board was several years ago so it must be nothing to do with her

Yes - and it is illegal to be a company director or a charity trustee under any name other than one's real legal name.

From the Skye photo and everything else we know, I'd say that Salray has always, since her teens, relied on Timoth to shine his glorious light on her and in her mind, make her golden and privileged, basking in what she saw as sunlight.

She reflects it back, of course. I can see why she made some utterly appalling and dishonest choices in an attempt to be 'good enough' by being a provider for a man who might have been handsome but was a bit of a loser really, not terribly functional (although no reason why he shouldn't be is obvious) I firmly believe he let her do this and disassociated himself from any wrongdoing that must have been suspected by anyone of average intelligence, money for Landrovers etc.

To follow up on some of my crazy posts this morning. I'd like to dedicate this song, in echo of 500MW:

I am fascinated by TW the Dapper Dandy, dressed to the nines, posing on a mountainside (and getting his best side to camera, one knee forward), having just married a woman who looks about fifteen and who is wearing a jumper with a pattern of pigs on it.

They look like characters from different films.

That song should come with a ‘caution, may cause ear worm’ warning 😀

I had to look that up! Yes, I've played it about 4 times now - but so I can dance and laugh

Flogging the book to a publisher may have been more difficult if SW was declared bankrupt and details of their financial misdeeds were potentially on public display.

Assumed to be psychological issues causing physical illnesses and symptoms, there’s no “proof”. we don’t know everything about medicine and biology, but if there is no obvious physical cause then just assume it’s a mental health problem causing the seizures, seems legit.

If Moth had been a woman he would have been totally written off with any of the “medically unexplained” labels du jour - hysteria aka conversion disorder aka depression aka shit life syndrome aka yuppie flu aka Fibromyalgia aka ME/CFS aka FND. ETA attention seeking.
He would be lucky to see a consultant, let alone repeatedly.

Would also have made it more difficult to hang on to other assets that they held - or raised questions about assets they may have transferred to their children. Also being declared bankrupt wouldn’t have been good for their vanity.

Lots of things can cause ataxia, I did a spell as a typist in the hospital bank and typed up letters in neurology for a short while. One letter discussed a man who was a heavy drinker in his 40s and noticed his balance was off while skiing (!). Anyway apparently drinking a lot for a long time can cause changes to the brain which may result in neurological changes (I don’t now remember the details, it was 20 years ago) including weakness and altered sensation, balance issues, one side of the body being less responsive, etc etc.
All to say, we don’t know what “lifestyle choices” might be at play- but be that as it may, i do remain unconvinced the he has anything wrong with him at all. Ironically, I’m more convinced that this is the case by Sally denying something that actually no-one had accused them of: “that Moth has made up his illness”. When she said this I don’t think anyone had said anything of the kind, so it seems a bit of a confession that she leapt to that conclusion.

Vroom: regarding pen-names, Ruth Rendell / Barbara Vine (whodunnit / other) and Iain Banks / Iain M. Banks (other / science fiction) come to mind.

Among the Observer’s many accusations, the most heart breaking is the suggestion that Moth has made up his illness. This utterly vile, unfair, and false suggestion has emotionally devasted Moth, who has fought so hard against the insidious condition of Corticobasal Syndrome. (R Winn July statement

@DoubtfulCat Yes they never have. I think that your insight rings true, it does make it more convincing that he made it up, when she asserts something no one said.

Thank you for that @ThompsonTwin - I must have missed it before. Looks like they bought it as a repossession too, coincidentally!

Thanks too @Freshsocks and @Uricon2 for your info/thoughts on the Welsh and Dunstall houses.