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

It is very strange that they don't take a photo of themselves at the sculpture at Minehead which marks the start of the SWCP and post it on Sal's IG feed - particularly as they claim in TSP that they did take photos there!

Stop!!!😂😱

One explanation could be that Jan (who they stayed with prior to starting the walk and who is described as living near Yeovil and dropping them off in Taunton) was in fact Moth's sister who lived in Bristol. It's feasible she could have given them a lift from Bristol to Taunton and they would have got a bus from there to Minehead.

Alternatively, their daily mileage for the MH to NQ / NQ to LE sections (totalling 256 miles) could have been much greater and thus in line with average walkers. It always bothered me how little they walked each day with so much daylight. More mileage per day would potentially reduce it to 2 weeks (av 18 miles p/d) or 3 weeks (av 12 miles p/d). Could it be Sal wrote her story by pretty much halving daily mileage as a subtle way for her to explain how on earth her sick husband was capable of doing it? She never dwells on how far they walk in the book but it would stop any questions if she were ever asked about.

I suppose it depends what Anne meant by "short walk" but I think both of these lengths (2 or 3 weeks) would qualify as short in the context of their 3+ months long walk doing the "whole" path in 2 parts.

Also have to remember they photographed themselves at LE on 15 Sept 2013.

Loved this review of The Salt Path film by a Tory peer in the House of Lords, called Lord Bates, which came out just weeks before OC's revelations appeared!

He must be feeling a bit of a chump!

Lord Bates reviews 'The Salt Path'

If they did indeed walk for 2 weeks in 2013 from MH-LE with a break in Newquay with their son and then another two chunks of two weeks in 2014, then it's theoretically possible that they did walk all of the SWCP in 2013/14 and then redid certain sections thereafter!

Yes, if you look at their daily mileage when it's recorded, or able to be estimated from descriptions of where they are, it just doesn't gel with where she says they pitched their tent -- they'd have been wild-camping in full view of the path, or actually on it, for hours and hours of every day, not just at night. And in some parts, that would have been less a matter of wild, salty headlands than busy, populated areas.

It's one of the fascinating differences between TSP and SA's Walking Away. even on the part they both walked. His version of it is far more populous and populated, whereas SW's USP is wilderness.

If they set off on the SWCP in 2013 much later than they claim (ie end Aug rather than the start of Aug) then they would have been on the path at pretty much the same time as SA!..

Catching up a bit here but completely off topic, I want to do the same with yoga. Would you happen to have any pointers or connections? Maybe via DM so as not to derail. No worries though if you’d rather not.

I have to share this guy again. He is a public health specialist and his book is recommended by Paddy Dillon: Any Porth in a Storm: The Long-Distance Walk that Goes South eBook : Burton, Oscar: Amazon.co.uk: Books

This is from an article that has been shared, by a few of us, but is always worth another look

For the most part, Raynor Winn has described a series of short hikes in warm weather and drizzle of about 6.75 miles or 10.8km daily, or around 15,000 steps, but arduous if you have a serious neurological illness.

Oscar Burton
The Salt Path: a walk without a moral compass

Ref those saying that Sally is a chameleon, I believe that’s something found in people with developmental trauma, borderline personality, and other issues. It’s something I am aware of in myself when I was younger- not having a clear sense of identity or even place. Mine has developed over time, but maybe Sally’s statement that Moth is her home is actually true- she has created her whole identity around being whoever Moth wants her to be, and I do think she would be absolutely lost and destroyed without him. Keeping him, and keeping him happy, is existential for her.

Yes, perfectly feasible - but here's where it gets interesting - I thought "why" when, in the true (?!) account it's the friend Jan who conveys the couple from Yeovil to Taunton and just drops them there, to fend for themselves in the pouring rain. Surely a true friend would have driven the extra 22 or so miles to the SWCP's starting point. (Or perhaps pleaded with them to give up the whole project?!)
Then, switching to the true true story - with a longer journey from Bristol to Taunton and a sister acting as chauffeur - the "why" questions in the "true" scenario still apply. Surely a blood relative would either have driven the full distance or tried to dissuade the attempt - especially with Moth's gammy leg!
Oh, but the walk would surely prove impossible after the first 2 1/2 miles (see the film) with only one leg functional!

I feel a circular argument in the offing so I'll stop now.

The Wild Silence, Chapter Only Change, Page 273
“No drugs or doctors could help Moth, but he didn’t need them. Simply by living as he was built to, his body had found a way to sidestep the failures and go on. As surely as removing heavy human interference from the land was allowing the wildlife to return to the farm, so Moth was surviving by returning to a more natural state of existence. Life re-forming and reshaping, not with man’s intervention but without it.”
”Don’t ‘be careful on the stairs’, run up them, run as fast as you can, with no fear of clocks ticking or time passing. Nothing can be measured in time, only change, and change is always within our grasp, always simply a matter of choice.”
Raynor Winn

Well, because in the fiction, the Walkers have to be bedraggled, forlorn tramps, alone in the world, thrown out on the roadside by an ungracious ‘friend’ who is tired of her ‘squatters’, having grudgingly given them houseroom (well, at least a floor) for weeks longer than planned, because Moth apparently needs to recover from whatever it is the Angel Session in Glastonbury did to him, and is grudgingly letting them leave their van on her drive. In this version of events, Jan just wants them gone, and slings them out on the roadside like someone abandoning an unwanted pet.

However, if ‘Jan’ is really a hospitable, well-disposed sibling who says ‘Stay as long as you like!’ or drives them to within a foot of the SWCP start and waves them off with a packed lunch and reminders about sunscreen and Moth’s drugs, shouting ‘Have a lovely holiday!’, and tells them to phone her day or night if they need collecting — that’s a whole different story and far less liable to pluck at the heart strings.

It’s more Ramblers’ Association or Duke of Edinburgh trek than Desperate Walk to Redemption.

(Obviously she’s not going to beg SW not to drag a dying man on a challenging 630- mile trek, because he isn’t dying, and they’re just off for a nice little holiday.)

And of course if we think of ‘Anne’ on the podcast remembering that the Walkers went on at least two walking holidays while staying on her farm, once using TW’s PIP and once using the fleece-wrapping money, it seems likely that their first stint on the path came out of a period of leisure and voluntary unemployment, while lying low from debt collectors and living rent-free at Anne’s farm, where they were no longer bothering even to pretend to declare bankruptcy, find work, or help out on the farm. Two grifters escaping the obligation of helping a family member in need, rather than two desperate homeless people.

'Into....my....[whisper] heart
An...air that... KILLS...' [sway]

It doesn't bear thinking about does it, really? 😂

I don’t recall if it’s been discussed before but I feel for their ( adult now ) children. They must have had some knowledge that the book and subsequently the film were not truthful.
Their lives must also be made really difficult by all this coming to light now too.

Thanks for this @HatStickBoots

returning to a more natural state of existence clearly one that doesn't involve collecting apples and making cider though. Also, as far as we know his last paid job before 'becoming ill' was as a heritage gardener, which sounds pretty outdoorsy and in nature to me. If Salray is to be believed (not that we do) it didn't stop him developing the illness they allege he has.

All this nonsense about "rewilding Moth" and the benefits of non cider making didn't last long did it, necessitating them taking off on another walk (apparently) She really is just making it up as she goes along and at times I think she's a very few short steps from the antivax/all meds are evil crazy.

It's an interesting question - to what degree did their children aid and abet their parents' misdemeanours, to what degree were they innocent bystanders and did they realise that TSP and the follow up books were based on a pack of lies?

• Worth remembering that when the events described in TSP took place, the children were adults and at university

• I assume they have read all 3/4 books that their mother wrote so can attest to their veracity or lack of It in the books and are fully aware of how ill their father is

• 'the team' are credited at the end of TSP. The 'team' comprises Sal, Tim and their 2 children.

• both children are shareholders in 'Four Hares Ltd'

• Polly claims that their son regularly resupplied them on their SWCP walk.

• We also know that their son went body boarding with his father in Newquay in the weeks before they started their walk on 8 Aug 2013. We also know from his (deleted FB post) that he gave them a lift on 17 Sept 2013 from Newquay back to Bristol

• the son's IG posts suggest that he moved into a house in Newquay in March 2015 and other sources suggest that the property is either owned by Sal & Tim or they provided the deposit for their son to buy it.

• their son deleted his FB account in the hours following OC's article in the Observer on 6 July

• both children are now in their 30s, live in Cornwall and do not use the surname 'Winn'.

Sorry - their son moved into a house in Newquay in March 2025 not 2015!

I know. It’s all absolutely ridiculous. The way that she described Haye Farm as being a derelict wasteland, bereft of life and here in her summing up speech at the very end of the book she is blaming “human interference” for that i.e Bill Cole, which is so far from the truth. She is just being a total liar. And why? All to justify their behaviour towards him and to keep the reader firmly believing that they are victims and in some way, everybody else has shortcomings or is downright horrible. She’s written these books, not as a chronicle of their lives, her love of nature or Moth’s health but as a sounding board for her particular personality disorders and to spin a dangerous fantasy about chronic illness which she knew people would lap up.
Chloe said something like “Nobody knows how to write a bestselling book” but I do think that Sally Walker, with a lot of time on her hands, a lot of research and a few key ideas was able to get the right formula for the time, but only by lying. The miracle of Moth, just fed into people’s mistrust of Big Pharm, doctors, the failing NHS. She says she was only writing about Moth and what worked for him but Moth does not have the illness that she claimed he had. Throughout her books she fictionalises that conversation with the big cheese who gave Moth a diagnosis, all the while knowing that no such thing happened. She has, in my mind, truly capitalised on this.

@Glitterbiscuits I think their son and daughter knew all along what was happening and have benefited financially as a result of Sally’s criminal activity which includes the thefts of money, the fiction she sold as fact and the plagiarism of other, better books.

In TWS she has used quotes from Simon Armitage’s poems as pre-chapter headers in some instances. He would have had to have given permission for that. I really feel for him.

Yes, this is an interesting one isn't it? It has never been discussed because I think we have, quite rightly, stayed with the parents - who are the main players. There have been times they have been mentioned because they have facilitated their parents' activities.

The son knows that TSP is highly inaccurate because he picked his parents up from Land's End in 2013, as well as surfing with Tim a couple of months earlier. He also knows they were not homeless as he took them to Bristol and also helped them move to his grandmother's former home.

The daughter is credited with taking some of her mother's promotional photos that feature in articles and on IG. She also set up the website that was to be for the wellness retreats and helped with sending out the £30.00 Saltlines books.

They were already in their 20s by the time HNTDDD was published and are in their mid-30s now.

They must also have known the eviction didn't happen in the space of 7 days as described in TSP, and they must have known their father wasn't diagnosed with CBD in the same week. Thus they knew TSP was a fiction.

The fact the son has fundraised with Tim and stated on social media his dad has CBD suggests he either believes it or he is complicit.

They could have lied to their own children, which seems even worse somehow. When the police came knocking and then when Sally skipped off to London, what cover stories were they making up?

Is it significant that when PRH delayed OWH from Oct 2025 to Oct 2026 they came out with a statement claiming that this was due to the distress Raynor Winn and her family were under but the launch has now been delayed by a further 15 months until 27 Jan 2028 but this time PRH has not made any statement?

Apologies if this has already been posted but CH is doing a live Q&A for Observer subscribers next Tuesday evening.