Thread 25 : To feel disappointed - and disgusted and vindicated now 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 24 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?

After 24,000 posts there are still recent, new and up-and-coming things to look out for on the path.
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:

• 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
• Ask Me Anything thread MNHQ here: AMA with award winning investigative journalist Chloe Hadjimatheou, Weds 28th Jan, 7-9pm | Mumsnet

Up-and-coming:

• Our Chloe's short video about Raynor Winn/Sally Walker's first book How not to Dal dy Dir - date to be confirmed.
• BBC Podcast - date to be confirmed

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. The Observer's new podcast series The Walkers (link above) covers most things.
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 7 months we have done amazingly well together for 24 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.

If you are posting about a podcast, please start your post with the episode number you are commenting on, for clarity and to help others avoid spoilers if they wish to do so. Many thanks.

After listening to The Walkers: The real Salt Path podcast episodes from The Observer my thoughts are even more with the Walker/Winns' victims. I also believe that the publishers, agent and prizegivers must now act and be seen to act.

As we enter our quarter century thread riding the community charabanc, as always keep to the path, no saltiness, eat fudge and drink cider.

NO POSTS PLEASE UNTIL THREAD 24 IS FULL 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? | Mumsnet

I think they have been watching, Monty python How not to be seen :)

I missed that bit. Thanks ☺️

What?! But I thought he was the Top Dog, the G(N)OAT!

Well silly me, I believed Sal's hype!

menacing whispering, shuffling and the Dr StrangeRay lab coat

You're on form today, @Uricon2. I hope that means you're feeling better.

The shapeshifting to become 'part of' any environment she finds herself in for more than 10 minutes is very telling and quite insulting to the people who have a genuinely deep connection with them.

Thanks @SableGules , getting there!

I also suspect that they will flit from Cornwall and find themselves somewhere in their 'new home' where she will start off with screeds about how they were 'driven from their spiritual (rented) home' and end up being 'the place they were meant to be, the place they feel they belong.'

It won't really matter where that place is, she'd say it whether it was Ballachulish or Bolton.

It won't really matter where that place is, she'd say it whether it was Ballachulish or Bolton.

Agreed @Vroomfondleswaistcoat and I think we need a list of places (it could be extensive) they should absolutely not be allowed to go, certainly not to live, based on our whereabouts, and/or ancestral heritage or in fact preferred holiday destinations.

I got v twitchy seeing Tim on Offa's Dyke, I tell you.

In that case, I am virtually barricading the whole of North Yorkshire and double barring the North York Moors.

Or Blarney.

You got there first. Yes please to banishing from the NY Moors - though on second thoughts, maybe it would be an opportunity to actually bump into her and deliver a grilling …

You are all sorely tempting me with the location alliteration but anyway ... I'm sorry to say that the rest of you need not erect a wall to keep Walkers out. I think they are here for the long-term - not necessarily in the house they are in now.

They were rootless because they always have to move on after messing up big time in their locality. This time they have messed up nationally so they would have to emigrate. They can hardly go back to the wider family now. I think, when they lost their home, they latched on to where there son was living. As he became more established then he could ferry them round when they came on holiday. Tim then applied for a course in Cornwall and they got feted by every prominent chef, folk band, orchard owner, literary festival ... - what's not to like!

Well, I'll start with banning them from Shropshire and the Marches generally, quite a way into Powys too. Give her half a chance and she'll be whispering Housman while swaying and staring over a mic as if she's going to take your liver.

You know she would and I can't bear it.

They could go to France. They've more than enough money to do up the place they bought over there (unless they are trying to avoid any of Tim's facmily who are still there). But something has to be done with that land.

I don't know about wild pooing, these two keep popping on their own doorstep :)

Glad you are feeling a bit better @Uricon2 💐

An ideal new project near Abersoch for Sal and Tim?

https://www.dailypost.co.uk/news/north-wales-news/private-abandoned-island-coast-gwynedd-33375537?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwdGRjcAP2_chjbGNrA_b9vmV4dG4DYWVtAjExAHNydGMGYXBwX2lkDDM1MDY4NTUzMTcyOAABHneKW-frcYmZ2LuHP3phqp3sEMhD0O74tiU5b3hvBdsAXaPs9aymDeUwAun0_aem_K1Wv25NDPaPTwT3VoONVCQ

Where was it they tried to send Hannibal Lecter to in Silence of the Lambs?

'Blue... remembered...HILLS...' (portentous stare) (shuffle)

This has just made me snort - the liver bit especially 🤣

The island is near Portmeirion. The Prisoner comes to mind.

Tim would love one of those stripy blazers, he would be posing and Sally would be running up and down the beach screaching, "I am not a number, I am every number that there has ever been."

And Our Chloe would be saying "We want information."

Interesting to listen to Ep6 (The Letters) of OC's podcast this morning.

Ann/Polly says that they did a short walk in 2013 before they came to stay with her and a couple of other short walks in 2014 when they were staying with her.

For me this implies that the walk from Minehead to LE didn't take place in one 6 week period between 8 Aug - 17 Sept 2013 but may have been cobbled together over a much longer period. This might explain some of the changes in clothing that crop up on this stretch of the walk in Sal's IG feed. It also suggests that they never walked any of the SWCP in more than two week chunks between 2013-2016.

If so, that would rather torpedo the claim that prololonged long distance walking was a cure for Moth's CBD!

In the aftermath of the Observer's first revelations last July, I heard from OC that she was keen to hear of any further anomalies/inconsistencies in TSP story which might, just might, be worth continuing with her investigations. So I had a second more critical re-read of the Taunton - Minehead - Lynmouth section. (A part of the UK very familiar to me with Minehead as my birthplace)
Although nothing found provable and therefore worth reporting to OC, I did question the story that Ann/Polly dropped them "in the pouring rain" on the streets of Taunton, necessitating a bus journey. Why? (this scene was re-enacted in the film but omitting the loud American fellow travellers) Then why leave the bus in the centre of Minehead - why on earth did they not alight on the seafront - where the SWCP actually starts!
The whole situation raises yet more "what ifs?" - such as what if RW was able to answer these (and many other) questions truthfully. And of course what if she was able to verify the points you are implying!
The circular arguments in this saga are one of the features which maintain my interest, sad but true.

I think the 'distraction' away from the experience of Sal and Tim walking this part - still with sketchy descriptions, few photos - is pegging it on to being ahead of Simon. That gives the continuity rather than their walking.

Simon was interviewed about his upcoming walk in March 2013, in The Guardian. There was also this in May 2013:

Simon Armitage to walk South West Coast Path as a modern troubadour - Latest News - South West Coast Path