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]

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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?
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

DH's boarding school apparently had 'great food, wonderful'.

As he loves the meals when he's been in hospital I'm not convinced.

Ugh! I had all that at my infants and juniors schools in the 70s … except the porridge. I was given Country store muesli for breakfast, basically the tray from the bottom of my Hammy hamster’s cage with milk added.

Oh yes there are! I'm (allegedly) the gentleman on the charabanc with the cloth cap - see the thread 23 gallery.
And although IRL I'm not that old, I've been "promoted" to HTG - hororary thread grandfather.

I've just seen a post from The Observer UK on Facebook, using the Salt Path investigation to sell subscriptions. Lots of people complaining that it's not news, it's pointless journalism, why spend all that time on investigating 'a book' etc etc. I did wonder whether any of the people defending Chloe and pointing out the lies and avoidances in TSP and how harmful they might be to genuine sufferers from CBD might be over here?

Honestly @Vroomfondleswaistcoat some of these people would be defending Dicky Nixon after the Watergate as the Greatest President Evah (although comparatively, contemporarily, he really does shine, TBH)

Total lack of any analysis and critical thinking

Possibly, but you wold be outing yourself if you said “oh yes, that’s me, Nicola Clark, I posted “x,y,z” feel free to follow me around the internet disagreeing with me”.

Envious at the thought of a real life meet up - with fudge and cider - given that some of us live up in the frozen North, very far from the Cornish headlands. (Though surrounded- apparently - by migratory birds).
But do go for it!!

Perhaps there could be an "oop north" local branch? Maybe combine it with a search for the elusive big Dave and quiet Julie on the fells.

While googling I found this blog post by an author about the scandal when it first broke. It is well worth a read. It adds another layer to the damaging effect of TSP that I had not considered...essentially that because of its success it became a model in publishing that influenced how publishers considered others' proposals.

juliebrominicks.wordpress.com/2025/07/08/the-salt-path-spectre/

To quote near the end sums it up best:

If publishers feel forced into publishing only what sells ridiculously well rather than what they think is interesting, and what sells well are twisted impossible truths, then we might as well let AI write the lot. If, however, we want integrity, we are all responsible; writers, publishers and readers.

But they appear to have fallen out, presumably over the theft from the Walker parents, and that has presumably contributed to why, according to the neighbours, SW and TW haven’t been there in years.

Glad that the unwell have rallied (miraculously?) and are back with us.

I’m totally up for a meet-up. Clearly we either do it in a tent on a golf course and eat only noodles, or a luxury hotel in Cornwall where we dash about in handmade cream suits and stylish gardening smocks.

Either way, we treat it like a fan (anti-fan?) convention and come dressed as key characters.

But including everyone, not just the Walkers. Blind seers, Smotyn, ‘Grant’ and his sexy harem, the dreadlocked Treen campsite manager, the cast of Iolanthe, the Yompers, the pink-haired girl, the tight-ponytailed council offices woman, the Australian strimmers, the Doc Martin fans, Dave and Julie, Simon Armitage and Beowulf.

Personally I plan to be the sneery blue-and-yellow-jacketed yachty woman who calls them tramps.

I don’t even live in the UK!

Have we had this in the mists of thread time? If so, mistakes were etc. It tickled me. From 06.22:

Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 - Dead Ringers: Ep 5. Man of Steel, Woman of Salt Path - BBC Sounds

Neeps and swede are the same thing 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

@RueMouffetard : "I’m totally up for a meet-up. Clearly we either do it in a tent on a golf course and eat only noodles ...". How about a tent on That Campsite, where we all slope off in the wee hours and don't pay? And if we get spotted, we can (in chorus) call the spotter a box ticker pretending to be a hippie?

Raise a glass to us Down Under, with you in spirit!

Not really: Swede is a Swedish turnip, hence the name “swede”. They are bigger, tougher skinned, yellow fleshed and much hardier than a turnip. Turnips are the smaller ones, with smoother skin and white flesh. They are faster growing.

Neeps are the orange yellow swede not the white turnip.

I enjoy holidays near Pwllheli myself, voting for a fudge swap-meet outside the bookshop which refused to stock HNTDDD

Followed by a lavish cream tea back at the barn, with glumwashers peering in and tutting.

Only if I can lob a fat apple at any itinerant middle aged couples who look at our largesse with disgust!

I stand corrected! Could be the whisky with the haggis and tatties that makes it easier to consume a small quantity of neeps once a year rather than being force fed industrial quantities of them on a weekly basis!

I'm never sure of the neeps/swede thing but we had swede. First time I had haggis (Burns supper, as an adult) the person next to me (Scottish) said the dram of whisky served with it should be poured over said haggis. I don't think it was a question of 'wind up the sassenach' as they did it with theirs. I think it adds something!

Well yes, but they could just say 'yes, I was over there making my thoughts known.' They don't have to tell me who they are!

And I note that today the headlines are full of 'Victoria Beckham seen for the first time since the scandal broke!!!' But it seems nobody has noted any appearances of Sal in the wild 'since the scandal broke'.

Oh and I'm going to come to the meet as the entire cast of 'Iolanthe'. All of them. I can carry it off.

You would be an adorable Fairy/Shepherd/Entire House of Lords. Wings, a shepherd's crook and an air of command?