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?

[DisappointedReader]

NO POSTS PLEASE UNTIL THREAD 23 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?
Thread 23:www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5475246-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?

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 23 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 23,000 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 (and including a shoutout to our threads), 13th January 2026:

The Walkers: The real Salt Path | The Observer

• The Observer, 18th January 2026:

The Salt Path scandal: a hunch, a hint and six months of ... and Publishers agree The Salt Path crossed a line | The Observer

• BBC Podcast, 28th January 2026 (to be confirmed)

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.

After listening to of The Walkers: The real Salt Path podcast episodes from The Observer 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.

As always, keep to the path, no saltiness, eat fudge and drink cider.

NO POSTS PLEASE UNTIL THREAD 23 IS FULL

Just checking in, if I may! Thanks for the new thread 🥰

Why is this such an issue? She wrote a book. Turns out it was not 100% truthful.

Who cares?

24 MN threads find it interesting. Hundreds of YouTubers find it interesting. And a respected journalist at The Observer found it so interesting that they wrote an expose of the shyster who “wrote a book”.

And @JamesClyman clearly finds it interesting enough to find this thread and contribute to it!

It gave people who had a certain health condition false hope and she actually stole from real people and ruined lives, and has been rewarded with riches from her book/film of lies as far as i understand it.

Girls, what’s going on here that’s you all talking for 24 threads? 😂😂😂😂😂

Thank you

There are still 25 posts left on Thread 23 folks >>>

< brandishes shepherd's crook >

Everyone who values truth and integrity, Sally. That’s who.

@Freshsocks Given Sal's not-exactly stellar ability to write comedy and dialogue, I suspect HNTDDD is utterly dreadful. But this just makes it even worse, because it's clearly her 'practice novel' for TSP - the book that won the 'first book' prize. The 'one book' that everyone has in them, and this is hers, which is why she wrote it twice and everything else she writes is a pale, thin attempt.

Thank you for the new thread @DisappointedReader
Very windy here again.. Had the charabanc got a roof?

I was in the midst of posting this on the last one and by the time I’d finished… so had the thread… so I’ve had to roll it all back up to post it here instead.

I’ve just picked up TWS. I read it a couple of years ago and not since. The passage about erecting the tent in the bedroom is on page 6. Ray has been out before Dawn on New Year’s Day because she can’t sleep (guilty conscience?). The titles and chapters of this section are “Always the Land” and “Gone to Earth”, which I liked very much and which set the scene for these two lovely people. Looking at it now, all I see is very clever exploitation.
“I clicked the duct-tape-bound poles back together with a rising sense of anticipation as they slotted into position and the green dome rose into shape. Crawling into the damp-smelling space it created, I was overcome with a rush of joy. Moth went to make
more tea while I dragged in the old battered inflatable mats and sleeping bags and took a pillow off the bed. I was back. This was it. My face sank into the pillow, the world slipped away and sleep washed over me on an incoming tide of relief. I’d gone to Earth.”
I got the impression that it was therapeutic because the trauma was catching up with her. The reader is completely on board with the whole homeless-but-not-our-fault-husband-dying-shock narrative. This is how she draws in sympathy and we now know she has been doing this for decades, knows exactly how to do it and who to do it to. In the next chapter “Invisible” she describes the diagnosis that Moth was given and exactly what the doctor told her. We know that this is completely false and she denies ever having claimed it. She once again spells out falsely what their life was like and how they lost their house.
Quote: “he was diagnosed with a neuro degenerative disease that had neither treatment or cure. No escaping the sense of fear that returned whenever I remembered being told that the pain in Moth’s shoulder, a numbness in his left side and dark fog of mental paralysis slowly taking his thoughts wasn’t just old age but corticobasal degeneration, CBD, a creeping unstoppable disease with only a short time left to run its course to the end. And as the doctor painted a picture of Moth’s body forgetting how to swallow and pneumonia making him choke on his own saliva, we realised how wrong we’d been: far worse things were waiting for us than becoming homeless.”
Raynor Winn, The Wild Silence
I’m utterly agog that she denies ever having claimed that the punishing long distance walking regimes and lack of calories cured Moth or that this is just unique to him so nobody should expect the same results? Why wouldn’t or shouldn’t they?
That’s right reader, because she lied.

I'm aboard the charabanc, thank you again @DisappointedReader, we are continuing our journey, hopefully the road ahead won't be too bumpy, just a few twists and turns :)
I can't imagine how bad HNTDDD must be @Vroomfondleswaistcoat.

I can imagine it @Freshsocks only too easily 😕
Im glad you’re starting to feel better 💐

@Bummmmblebee summarised very nicely -

Maybe the new blurb should say "Unflinchingly dishonest".

I think that's perfectly true.

Thank you @HatStickBoots, hope you feel better too 💐
As you point out Salray is constantly trying to gain the readers sympathy, it is the most horrible, deliberate emotional manipulation.
I like your suggestion @MargaretThursday :)

Hopping onto the new thread as I managed to let the last one pass me by completely.

I’m listening to Chloe H’s podcast at the moment and finding it fascinating but also quite upsetting as the sheer scale of it all is laid bare. Enjoyed the MN mention greatly (i do just wish she wouldn’t say ‘twenny-twenny’ though).

I’m going to go back and catch up on the last thread but did someone say a copy of HNTDDD has emerged?

So you noticed it, too - "twenny twenny" ocurred several times and I found it mildly irritating. Sorry Chloe!
The answer to your question re. HNTDDD is IIRC covered in one of the podcasts so I won't spoil your listening pleasure yet to come.

Hi there,

We just wanted to flag that next week Chloe Hadjimatheou will be joining us for an AMA - you can find more details and post your questions here.

Thanks,
MNHQ

I think quite a lot could be said and compared whilst keeping to under 10%, if carefully done. I'm sure there's plenty of filler that doesn't need to be quoted.
Plus, for instance, if she says 'headlands'' 10 times you can quote it once and comment on the repetition

Ooohhh!!! <jumps up and down with excitement>
I can't make the actual time, so hoping I can read it afterwards.
Had to look it up, AMA =ask me anything

Thank you for posting @RhiannonEMumsnet

Just to confirm that it will be on camera?

Hi @DisappointedReader, Chloe will be responding in writing on the thread (you can see a previous example of the format here). Thanks!

A little rude don’t you think.

Interesting that she uses 'gone to earth', because that's the term for what foxes do when the hounds are right on their tail....