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

Oh …. I’m getting “silence of the lambs” vibes now, with Moth at the bottom of a very deep well and Sally lowering down minuscule portions of noodles to him.

"It needs to learn to limp better. It looks too healthy"...

"Be careful on the stairs!"

@LibertyLily could he offer her mates rates for the lowdown? (Hopeful) 😂

Some of you are being very naughty but I now have the image in my head of Timmoth searching Rightmove for bungalows!

In my head SW is carefully following the story of the Australian mushroom poisoner, and jotting down copious notes..

I don't think he realised that's what she had in mind when she suggested a wellness retreat...

Well, only ruined bungalows, surely, because they have to Restore It Lovingly With Their Own Hands.

Bonus points if it sits in a wasteland eerily devoid of flora and fauna, needing the restorative hand of that archetypal Green Man, TW.

To be honest she doesn't need to. She can just 'speak in tongues', hide in a cupboard and then pretend that she doesn't know what happened. If ever there was a person who would use the 'fugue state' defence, it's Sal.

But TW, with his Deep Botanical Knowledge, recognises the fatal Deadly Webcap, just as he's succumbing to its fast-acting poison, concealed in a wifely risotto -- 'Cortinarius rubellus!...' he scrawls with his dying breath, inside a handy copy of Paddy Dillon's guide to the SWCP, which never leaves his side.

But can Doc Martin save him at the last moment? If not, can the cast of Beyond Paradise solve the crime? Possibly with Emilia Fox stepping in while on holidays?

Am reading Phoebe Smith's Wayfarer at the moment and can't help wondering how she feels about being gaslit by Sal.

Thanks for putting the above together. Here we have someone else who has had Sal having to trump her experience and yet again Sal has got away with it. Everyone is so nice to Sally, generous and forgiving, and always undergirding the Walkers, was the trump card they played - the terminal diagnosis.

The video you shared of Cathy interviewing Sally was very telling where Cathy describes how she wasn't sure what would be the right thing to give, ie a sandwich, with a heavily-laden backpacker. Sal launches in to one of her animated, chunky hand-movement speeches of her experience with a homeless person. Cathy is even brave enough to interrupt Sally (very unusual) to say this was a backpacker but, oh no, Sal is determined to say how you should ask a homeless person what they want.

The sheer force of Sally's manipulation is what continues to astonish me. This is why I wish more people who have experienced it would just say something straightforward now. It needs to be countered by what others have actually lived and felt.

I agree. I would suggest that many who have felt hoodwinked or gaslit who have a public profile simply don't want the negative assocation. In a way, their silence contradicts those questionable articles that have said "there's no such thing as bad publicity" (in relation to a boost in TSP sales) because clearly GA, JI, AH, SA, PS to name but a few have not uttered a single word! There clearly is such a thing as bad publicity, insofar that they must perceive their silence as damage limitation, whether to protect their brands, body of work, or egos. They don't want the attention. Fair play to Ruth Saberton who put herself above the parapet, but I guess her connection and experience with SalTim was far more personal and powerful to cause her to speak out.

This must be a mutual admiration society because I completely agree with you, as well. As I was reading your comment I was thinking Ruth Saberton - what a star 🌟 Yesterday, some of the others were having a bit of fun with a murderous theme but for me this is mostly like The Silence of the Clams.

Alternative titles of her books that might reflect something actually unflinchingly honest:

How Not To Sal, Sigh, Jeer
The Sal Path
The Beguiled Silence
Landlies

The Gigspanner collab: Sal Lies

I think he's guaranteed to get the job 😁 Unfortunately, he's so busy it probably won't be happening till much later in the year (if not next), but I'll be reminding him to ask the right questions when he does the work 😉

@YourMoneyforFrothingandYourChipsforFree your rearrangement of Saltlines is pure genius

I do think it is remarkable how stoic Salray’s abused family have been through this. I don’t think I could be as gracious as they have been. I know they don’t have any power really to do anything about all of this. But it would drive me to distraction seeing all this praise being heaped on a lie.

Also, things I assume about Salray with no evidence but I bet I’m right:

• Has a few female friends and tells people she doesn’t get along with women.
• Has in the past tried to launch herself as either an entrepreneur by thinking up some very obvious idea and assuming that that’s what being an inventor is.
• ostentatiously liberal about sex. Talks about it a lot and makes people uncomfortable.
• has in the past had all of the following as hobbies, bang on about them and then drop them almost immediately: knitting, crochet, surfing, watercolour painting, nature photography, people/boudoir photography, (I would normally have writing on this list but…), pottery, glass fusing.

To be fair he probably has neither

I wonder if part of their silence is relief. They know now that Sal has plenty of money and won't be touching any of them up for somewhere to live or money to pay the rent or help out with the kids' expenses.

I mean, she still might, but they've got the perfect come back in 'but what happened to all the money you made from the books?'

Their silence may have something to do with the fact that they are still a family - attending gatherings, weddings, christenings and funerals and that a number of Tim's siblings may still support him and Sal.

Still no sign of the BBC podcast - makes me wonder whether the lack of new material has led the BBC to quietly bury the project. If so. what a waste of taxpayer's money!

I can't find any mention of a BBC podcast either @ThompsonTwin, plenty of old articles, but nothing suggesting that a new podcast is being made or planned for broadcast. One article had quotes from AF the ex PRH person, she talks about someone needing chutzpah to tackle Raynor Winn (referring to PRH staff) because Raynor Winn was a big selling author, but that is after the event, if PRH had checked at the very least the claim of terminal illness, Salray would most likely never have become a best selling author/money-spinner that they were scared to tackle, PRH created the monster.

Afternoon all. I hope you are well today. I suspect we may need to convert our beloved charabanc in to an ark with all this never-ending rain. Any volunteers?

Yes, despite two lots of recent information to the contrary, the BBC podcast is still conspicuous by its absence isn't it, a little like Saltim. Did a charabancer post something relating to the BBC podcast from Private Eye or are mistakes being made by my memory?

A reminder about this tomorrow evening 6.30-7.15pm with Our Chloe and The Observer. I can't attend so I'm hoping we can rely on those who can for the usual excellent representation and reporting back! If anyone has the chance to ask, I'd be interested to know OC's thoughts on:

• Could Dave and Julie be extended family members, like cousins? I think we thought not siblings.
• Did OC discuss the review of TSP with Timmoth's consultant and did he admit to writing it?
• To what degree are Saltim's very-much-adult offspring involved, culpable and benefitting from their parents' deceptions? For most of our threads, particularly in the early days, most of us have not wanted to focus any attention there for good reason. However, given what we now know about their ages and them having some involvement - named in the company records, dealing with Saltlines journal orders, attending fundraising events, deleting SM posts, giving lifts and removals, for example - I do think it's now a valid question, within reason. I know some pps also questioned a house purchase back in the mists of thread time, (which could of course be entirely independent).
• Does OC have any more information about Salray's departures from the hotel and court fines office jobs, Timmoth's departure from the NT gardening job and their departure from the first house they owned?

The Walkers: Behind the Scenes with Chloe Hadjimatheou | The Observer