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

You've got me laughing now about how to get copies of LSB to various people mentioned. I mean, maybe that's why they have to walk in 2015 and 2016 to try to track down the woman who looks for the John Le Carré house - so she can agree to her inclusion?

It has also highlighted how Sal has a thing about other women's hair. Scraped back ponytail girl may like to see LSB? The Three Graces with Grant have fetching shades of blonde - for a long time I've imagined Rosamund Pike being all three of them, but with her hair styled differently from various films.

Sal obviously thinks she has lovely hair - and she does have very nice hair - and of course that is what attracted Tim.

How about pink-haired girl in Clovelly, the two who share a box of red hair dye in Looe.

Sal: ‘What do you think I’d look like with red hair?’
Tim: ‘Please don’t.’

Did Chloe answer the CBD charity question about why they distanced themselves (?)

They did so with almost indecent haste whereas PRH & book prize people etc prepared to overlook a lot/have stayed quiet.

I think, when it comes to the handwritten letters, we have to remember that we're only here for matters relating to TSP and the whole farago of events resulting from the lies told relating to that.

There will likely be personal matters brought up in the letters that have no bearing on anything that relates to the books and therefore we really have no right to see, or ask about, those letters. Pulling Sal's life apart as it has been depicted is fair game (because it's all so easily disproved and the lies have had repercussions for many other people), but her life outside and around the writing which doesn't relate to any of the books' contents should remain private.

She didn’t say. I imagine they asked S and T for the formal diagnosis. When it wasn’t forthcoming what else could they do? I have said before that if Tim did have a diagnosis why on earth NOT ask his neurologist to make a statement on his behalf? It would have stopped the expose at once and there would have been so much sympathy for them. His illness isn’t private because they have monetised it.
The only conclusion I can come to is they didn’t have the evidence the PSPA needed to see.

It's often been mentioned on the threads that SW cannot admit to anything so, for me personally, I do find the confession letter a real anomaly. If you were writing to your sister about stealing from your Mum, why mention you also stole from your in-laws? I have little doubt that what is in the letter is correct but I do have some doubts about the authorship which makes me wonder if the confession letter is a summary letter of the handwritten ones. (Many apologies to their families involved but the situation does have me second-guessing everything we are told).

Someone also mentioned that the 'Don't look for the money' article mentions the handwritten letters contents but it only mentions that the letters corroborate the information given by the relatives.

Very impressed by OC's marathon performance last night - and I noticed especially just how carefully she chose her words throughout. Also OC made it 100% clear when and why she could only offer the questioner a partial response.
Seemed to me that she attempted to d/w most of the AMA questions and also showed herself to be a good sport. (Fudge, cider and charabanc travel come to mind!)
Surely this story would have "fizzled out" if it had simply involved a publication incorrectly categorised as non-fiction and advertised as "unflinchingly honest" when discoveries post-publication called this into question. So reclassify as a novel, ? loosely based on real-life events. Oh, and delete the "unflinchingly honest" claim.
But by digging a little deeper it was revealed that the two main characters in the novel (author and husband) appear to have gone through life not paying their way - or, worse still - using other peoples money to fund their apparently extravagant life-style.
The former crime affects all of us, at least in my view, because all unpaid bills have to be paid somehow (probably written off ) and that process inevitably pushes up prices (of goods and services) for the rest of us.
And whilst I admit to being no angel, I have never, ever, nor would I ever, fake an illness or exaggerate an existing condition. Not for any reason whatsoever.

If SW outlives TW, I imagine that will trigger a return to public appearances. A book along the lines of “The Truth”, and associated interviews, could be immensely lucrative. They are both in their 60s and none of us is promised three-score-years-and-ten, far too many of my friends and family didn’t get there.

Should TW outlive SW, I wonder if he would choose to make money from speaking about their lives?

Perhaps they can look forward to grandchildren, and direct their energy and purpose away from themselves

Absolutely, and I keep thinking of BC just being nice, wanting to help, wanting to do things with his new friends and them doing the emotional equivalent of kicking a puppy!

Thank you & I agree.

For some reason, (and this is a gut feeling NOT evidence based) I feel the charity either knew or had a strong suspicion the ‘story’ and/or diagnosis was a COMPLETE fabrication & cut them immediately & absolutely DEAD as a result. Which, if so, maybe the only justice this pair have ever faced.

Chloe did say that S and T were aware of her investigation for a long while before it hit the news stands, and she regularly updated them (or via their lawyers) so it’s possible the charity had a heads up?

But she needed urgently to convince her sister not to go to the police about the thefts from their mother. I think we need to see that entire email as a carefully-judged piece of writing aimed at persuading her sister not to take the obvious course of action, so any detail included is there for a reason, not just from an excess of candour.

Why might she have confessed to also stealing from her in-laws?

To add to the sense that she's definitely got a police record, and if her sister goes to the police, on top of the theft from Martin Hemmings, there's also another major family theft that might come out, maybe? So if they shop her, she's definitely going to jail? It gives her sister the impression that she has all the power, but then tries to stop her using it by saying, essentially 'You will be sending me to prison if you take action'.

To make it sound more like a form of compulsive illness, over which she has almost no control?

Or even, by pointing out that she's also stolen from TW's parents, and MH, lessen her sister's sense of grievance that their elderly, not well-off mother was her sole target?

I don't know, but maybe worth noting that it did work, and her sister didn't report it, although there's no evidence at all that SW tried to repay any of the money, despite all her protestations.

Thinking of Moth’s American football story & stories of dying despite his ‘unusually good days’ no wonder Sally had to keep him under lock & key or send him out shopping when Chloe calibre journalists came knocking…

And of course that TW’s parents had not run to the police. How would it look if her own family treated her harshly, yet Tim’s had forgiven her?

I wonder whether Tim’s South American cat-led shepherding tied in with his eco activism?

That would make sense. Maybe Sal had most concern in this area? That a reputation devastating fabrication might be uncovered? Hot footing to get some medical ‘receipts’ too, perchance?

I totally agree with this. What's more, by confessing to these other thefts, she was attempting to paint herself as honest and merely a victim of the original alleged bad investment. She does this in a similar, but far lesser way, in TSP when she included fudge thefts etc, as previously discussed. Of course, admitting these huge thefts is different, but the concept is there...tell something unfinchingly honest and everything you say might be believed. Also, by confessing to the other thefts, it kind of makes the theft from the mother not as big a deal. I think it was high risk, but like you say, it worked!

One thing I was thinking recently is why Mothman hasn't used his platform following RW's success for any ecoactivism or environmental campaigning? I suspect it is because he was never involved that kind of thing.

On the personal information the public don’t need to know about but CH does…

I wonder if this may include info on the character on TW’s almost alter ego: Moth. Moth the ‘I can hold any audience in palm of my hands’ charmer. Moth, the narcissistic, compulsive attention-seeking, handsome, cravat wearing champion of the underdog who Sal considers out of her league.

These characters, IME, often have a fraudulent & cowardly side. (Did CH say anything re: Moth questions)? Like Macavity, he’s never there…

The ones I have known are often serial cheats too, they have wives who worship regardless. Where do Sal’s Grant young, blonde (as someone said almost interchangeable Rosamund Pikes with different hairstyles) insecurities/imaginings spring from? Did Sal advise here? NB: Sighings from another room…Why is Sal often putting herself down?

Just catching up and enjoying the discussion!
Random thoughts: I think it is clear now that Simon’s ‘Walking Away’ published in June 2015 was used as some sort of template and that they did purposefully attach their sorry patchwork to his coattails and use him like they use everyone to suit their own purposes. I bet nobody remembers Moth standing up and reading from his ‘battered’ Beowulf in St Ives because he wasn’t there and didn’t. That was only shoved in as well to be a convenient link to SA, I believe now. We’ve seen photos of Tim with a pristine copy of this book, not a treasured battered one which has always made me think it’s just a pretentious prop. Surely people at that literary festival would remember Moth.

Interesting that Dave and Julie exist but I can’t remember what OC said about them.

Yes! I’ve thought this too. He’s the total opposite isn’t he? I think Eco warrior must have been invented for the book to give him an attractive sounding label. The original generation of Eco warriors, look everyone. What exactly did he do?
“Warrior” gives him a hard edge, a fighter. “Eco”, non threatening, he’s a softy at heart.
Economical…. With the truth.

And ‘Auntie’ saw the email too.

CH had seen their photo on Sal’s socials, as we had, but had no luck at finding them from memory. Does Sal call them ‘Dave and Julie’ in the photo & is it still available to view?

And of course it gave her a kind of template for the high-risk strategy of telling far more self-exonerating lies than necessary in TSP and then not being content with the success of TSP and retiring on her laurels, but going on to make far more incredible claims re TW's health and the healing powers of nature in the media and its two sequels, including the Miraculous Normal DAT Scan scene in LL.

Well, why wouldn't she? No one appeared to disbelieve her, and no one stopped her.

She always got off. She dodged jail by getting a family member to pay off the Hemmingses, no member of two families reported her to the police, and she even managed to turn homelessness into an eventual Big Win, by rewriting it from 'Our families were incredibly forgiving and at least four people let us stay with them longterm, despite knowing that we couldn't be trusted, even hosting our adult children and trying to find us jobs', to 'No one would help us, so we strode out with the clothes on our backs, a tent, £48 pounds a week and a death sentence, but still cool and interesting free spirits anyone would end up rooting for'.

There isn't any evidence of that in any way. I did think his whole gardening experience and, now confirmed, degree would be his thing to sell for the wellness retreats. Rather than walking, the woods and the gardens would be the thing to heal him now. Where they have been staying (last I heard!) the gardens used to be open to the public but are now listed as permanently closed.

When Charles launched his film, yesterday:

He provides his own description: "It all boils down to the fact that we are actually nature ourselves, we are a part of it, not apart from it, which is really how things are being presented for so long," says the King.

Sound familiar? I thought, oh thank goodness at least we have been saved from Sir Moth and Lady Raynor ....

Do we think Sal & Tim read the AMA?

If memory serves she, or a staunch defender, came on line perhaps at the start of the charabanc’s journey.