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

Yes, sorry. But it is obvious that she shouldn't have been entered. I remember the article we looked at with one of the judges talking about a debut book.

Technically isn't Tim the sole publisher of HNTDDD?

Good points. Interested in how much plot of HNTDDD truly mirrors ‘the story’ e.g. Did they fake camping trips. The devil may be in the details here & charabancers could uncover. E.g Ellias - phonetic spelling of Sally backwards. Any characters known as Macs etc & hotel sackings…?

I think it’s possible that MW and SW were quite challenging to deal with and the consultant felt he had to offer them something to get them out of the consulting room.
It’s interesting that the neurologist CH interviewed suggested a functional neurological disorder. I saw a few cases like this as a mental health nurse and people were often unhappy with being told there was no physical cause for their problems. Many would see numerous doctors and have countless expensive tests. I imagine MW and SW latched on to the ‘the symptoms most closely resemble CBD’ and ran with it. After all a physical health problem is much more acceptable and likely to attract sympathy than a mental health disorder. There’s also more chance of book sales.

There was one to her mother that was reproduced in the "Don't look for the money..." article.

The 2015 letter says, "Of course the tempo and the normal imaging to date strongly implies indolent neurodegenerative pathology rather than any type of condition. However, this is clearly not idiopathic Parkinson's disease and indeed none of the main neurodegenerative syndromes fit very well. I have explained to Mr Walker that his condition most closely resembles the corticobasal syndrome (asymmetric bradykinesia and dyspraxia with impairment of horizontal gaze more than vertical) but it is clear that he is affected very mildly, especially given the long history. I mentioned to him the PSP society provides information about corticobasal syndrome/corticobasal degeneration but emphasized that much of the information he would encounter if he researched the matter would pertain to patients with more severe disease than his own."

I think that any publication that is offering big money for a tell-all expose is going to want a lot of breast-beating, a lot of admission of guilt, mea culpa, and throwing of oneself on one's sword. I don't think they would pay out for self-justifying, detail-fudging, partial truth.It wouldn't be worth the money.

If they are getting an exclusive and, knowing how forensically facts have been gone through, they are going to need transparency regarding details and dates. I don't think she'd get away with 'my truth, mistakes were made.' They would want THE truth and acknowledgement of wrong doing.

I'm not saying a superficial appearance in the Mirror with some lovely photos and a quick 'I've been so misunderstood and taken wrongly and my mental health has suffered' article are out of the question, but I don't think they'd offer much money for that. And Sally has an eye to the earnings.

It reminds me of when Belle Gibson did an interviews for 60 Minutes. It fell apart very quickly when she couldn’t say how old she was or when her birthday was. The money was good for Belle, but the interview was a disaster for her as her story fell to bits. Sally won’t risk this. She is used to friendly journalists at Lit Fests or sympathetic podcast hosts. She has told so many versions s of her story it won’t stand up. And she needs to stick to her truth. Her legal team have said TSP is the true story of their physical and emotional journey. She can’t go back on that without admitting she lied.

Could someone please remind me how knowledge of the self published book first came to light please?

Is there still a time-line? Just wondering whether it's been updated since the podcasts and the extra info CH added yesterday, eg Salray telling 'Cooper' way, way back in the mists of time that Timoth had some sort of neurological problem.

It really rankles that it looks as though there will be no legal consequences. There have been so many victims of their actions, direct and indirect. I don't get any pleasure from anyone, including this pair, suffering ignominy even when its of their own making, but it seems that's the only comeuppance they'll get. Even then it's going to be self pity rather than contrition I would think.

It was in the first exposé by Chloe on 5 July 2025, I don't think we have been told how she knew about it.

I think it was very good to have a timeline as a model to hang things on, for a while. But, it has been turned inside out by subsequent findings and revelations.

There are too many altered dates. The smaller walks probably carried on up to her writing TSP, for instance.

Wouldn't it be fabulous if Sally Magnussen were the one to grill her having been sucked in previously? I imagine a car crash interview much like Prince Andrew with Emily Maitliss.

SM: So Sally, if I may call you by your real name, how could you steal so much money from your employer and your family?

SW: [sharp intake of breath, head shaking] well Sawwy, I deny I stole anything. I couldn't have because I was in Pizza Express at the time writing my memoir, with Moth as my witness! He was there, but rapidly deteriorating at the time due to his CBD. It has no treatment or cure apart from sporadic walking holidays. He couldn't even lift his arm to put a piece of pepperoni pizza in his mouth. I actually wrote my unflinchingly honest memoir one-handed because I had to feed Moth with the other.

I did wonder that, but thought it might have fallen under the heading of what CH talked about on the AMA as the Walkers’ right to some privacy — that when something she’d discovered didn’t add significantly to what she considered the public interest angle of the story, she left it out. Sign of an ethical journalist.

If I’m remembering rightly from the podcast, those handwritten letters were from SW to her mother after the theft had been found out, and her mother, after a period of estrangement, had allowed her get back in touch by letter. So it’s possible that they cover much the same territory as the ‘confession email’, but are more personal (and painful?) because they’re to the actual victim of the theft?

Or that ‘Anne’ or another relative of SW asked CH not to quote them because they felt they contravened SW’s mother’s privacy or that she’d have hated them being on a podcast? Maybe the older woman whose ‘podcast name’ I’ve forgotten, but who called SW’s mother ‘Auntie’?

Or that their primary importance, in being handed to ‘Anne’ on her mother’s deathbed, along with the email confession, was really as a means of authenticating the email, as from the same source?

That reminds me of another thing from the AMA. That CH had got her copy of Lightly Salted Blackberries from someone to whom SW had sent it because they were mentioned in it. She didn’t want to say more because she hadn’t asked permission.

That’s interesting (1) because it’s part of the normal publication process for memoir (publishers will encourage you to send a copy of the MS to anyone identifiable and mentioned, to check if they’re ok with their portrayal, and to stave off anyone insisting on inaccuracies being expensively altered in subsequent editions, or taking legal action), and also (2) to think about who SW could/would have sent LSB to?

So many of the Walkers’ encounters are either fictional or unidentifiable chance-met people they had no way of contacting (if they even existed), and so many people whom she represents in a hostile way. I mean, imagine ‘Anne’ being sent a copy of LSB and being asked if she’s ok with her portrayal as ‘Polly’!

ETA I’m not suggesting we try to identify who it was, but it’s actually surely a very small pool of people who are not represented with hostility or inaccurately, and for whom SW had contact details to send the LSB MS to?

Simon A is identifiable...assuming that running "gag" was in LSB.

Completely agree with this, @PsaltyNotASongBook . Sal can't deviate from her script - as has been noted on these pages many times, she simply regurgitates the same things over & over again, ad nauseam, in person and on the page. She looks and sounds ill-at-ease when interviewed - she can't think on her feet and isn't a natural raconteur, even though she clearly enjoys the attention on one level. I think if she were to agree to a no-holds-barred interview it would be a massive self foot-shooting exercise.

But CH said SA ‘wasn’t friendly’ and didn’t want to talk to her. Would he have sent her LSB? Or, if he had, would she have described him on the AMA as ‘unfriendly’?

IIRC something is said in the podcast about how CH learned about it. I would have to check though.

True. Was just floating it as he is an obviously identifiable person and likely was sent a copy. Didn't he give his blessing?

You’re right. He would almost certainly have been sent a copy. And yes, from that article in the New Statesman, he does imply he was asked to ok the use of his name, even if he’s not actually in LSB/TSP, and said ‘Fine’, out of a sense that the unknown author was ‘down on her luck’.

ETA And of course now we know he’s not just a deeply unfunny running gag, his well-publicised SWCP walk was a crucial alibi in them pretending to have walked the first part of the SWCP long before they walked any of it.

Great explanation 😃

I think it is just that Tim Walker registered a new company - and it was a publishing company. Just as many of us noticed that Raynor Winn was a director of a homeless charity. Companies House was very useful.

‘But first let me take you back to the start’.

I fear she’ll weasel a way & come out smelling of roses too…To the vast majority.