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

@RueMouffetard - I suspect that OWH would be very light on any details that needed fact checking. Much introspection and internal torment. However it looks as though it has effectively been pulled (although I have my next book listed as coming out in 2027 when it is out in 2026, so it could just be that dates have got scrambled and they've only pushed it as far as January 2027 now, so back by three months).

I'm hoping that it's going to just get pushed back and pushed back until it's quietly retired. OWH, that is. Not my book...

Sal might have gone north "like a migrating bird" but OWH has "gone south"⚡

Would the part-time bookkeeper be allowed to give a free room or two, for a night or two? I really doubt it.
A free bunch of flowers is of no real cost to Waitrose. A free room has a real cost to a hotel.

Thirdly, this is from Coverack Life back on 6 July 2026 when Our Chloe's exposé first broke. It may well have been posted already back in the mists of thread time. Scrolling down, there are also some beautiful photos taken by a local today:

Coverack Life | A story built on lies so sad | Facebook

Then an admission of guilt though?

It’s been updated on Amazon too. What’s the chances that it is being rewritten ?

I think OC & charabanc occupants have made Sal realise an edit & rewrite are needed or…Oh dear! Plot holes galore! Edited to say that may leave her with VERY limited material!

In my experience (as charabanc Writing Correspondent) rewriting a book is almost harder than writing it in the first place. Deciding what to retain from the first draft and what needs to be changed and reworked is a real brain strain. I don't think Sal has the ability to keep this thing going any longer - if she had a real writing ability then I am sure she could have spun things. But, while a fiction writer is basically someone who lies for money, a non-fiction author has different constraints. She might well be writing OWH again from scratch but as she was supposed to be basing on a walk done a while back while Moth was suffering lonely at home (according to the blurb), I have no idea what she could base it on a second time. And all the musings and introspection from that original draft would have to go as we all know that Moth is, apparently, bursting with health.

A lot of people would have seen proof copies so I would have thought a rewrite would be quite risky.

I was too late to add that, scrolling down further on Coverack Life, there is also an urgent appeal today for support following recent storm damage at the local Flicka Foundation Donkey Sanctuary. There is a link for donations on the page if anyone can comfortably help but it isn't permitted to post it here on MN.

Does it come down to whether they need the money, maybe not even just the immediate earnings from sales of OWH, but the future earning potential of the 'Raynor Winn' brand -- and how SW envisaged her future as 'RW'? Hard to know how much will continue to come in in royalties from the first three books.

Or is it more about self-justification, having the last word, not letting the CH damning exposé in be the dominant narrative that stands about her?

It would obviously be safer for SW to just pull OWH on the grounds of 'distress', MH and TW's health etc etc and live in obscurity. But can she resist taking the opportunity to hit back, via a complete rewrite, against the Grotesquely Misleading False Narrative of CH? Even if that involves potentially exposing herself still further?

Maybe PRH, armed with proofs, are reading our threads & pennies beginning to noisily drop?

It's a Catch-22 situation.

A full confession might torpedo her loyal fanbase while a partial confession, spun to justify 'her truth', risks re-opening the Pandora's box of media scrutiny that OC's Observer expose unleashed.

Not sure what Max Clifford would be advising Sal at this juncture!

Thanks very much. The Derek Tangye fans here will know why this particularly resonates.

Could & would PRH potentially ask searching questions of Sal re: OWH if they spotted things that didn’t add up? Poss leading to re-write?

@DisappointedReader I hope all is well. Thanks for the info re the Flicka Foundation.

I think, if she took out all the inconsistencies and inaccuracies and massages of fact, she might be left with the word 'The'.

The new release date 2 years away is very intriguing. Signals a rewrite to me.

Lol! Imagine if this is actually dangerously close to truth!

Signals another book completely to me!

Two years is a VERY long time, even if she's going to start again completely from scratch, in which case a new blurb and title should be going up shortly.

I suspect this is PRH on damage limitation, not wanting to signal that they've lost faith in Sal by withdrawing the book altogether, but pushing it back until they can just slide it from the schedule without anyone noticing.

Blimey, just really registered it is 27/01/28, it went into my lonely braincell as next year. Do they hope everyone will have forgotten by then?

Newsflash PRH, we won't.

Bt the time it comes out, it will be 2 and a half years since Our Chloe's expose, for a book that must have been pretty much ready at the time it broke. Thanks @Vroomfondleswaistcoat and all for insights around what could be happening here.

Totally agree. They are letting it drift away. By 2028 the publishing landscape will look very different and her brand will be irrelevant and forgotten. This is PRH saying goodbye.

RW RIP?

There's a really interesting comment on that, @DisappointedReader -- a poster called Julia Tarry says 'How sad that anything nice has to be destroyed'.

That to me is the exact sentiment that seems to motivate a certain type of response to the CH investigation. They blame, not SW for deceiving them, but CH for pointing it out.

TSP was 'nice', so their loyalties lie with that niceness rather than the 'not-nice' exposé.

It's a version of shooting the messenger. Or 'If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.' In this worldview, CH is guilty of bad manners, of being the one to say 'We all know your Derek was shagging Natalie from the pub' at a dinner party.

And another poster on Coverack Life seizes on the fact that CH's reporting has been contested on other stories she's investigated, not appearing to realise that this is the nature of investigative journalism, not that CH is some kind of skeezy, disreputable knicker sniffer who goes through bins looking for celebrity secrets and publishing rumours. The same poster quotes SW's statement as though it refutes the Observer story.

Someone else says 'So sad, because most of us love the coastal paths around Cornwall'. It's not clear what she thinks is 'sad', the scam somehow smearing the SWCP, or CH for bringing a lovely story about the SWCP into disrepute.