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 it's thought of as 'well written' by those middle class non-readers who pride themselves on 'never having time to read'. You might think that some of the wildlife descriptions were well written if you'd never read any other, better-written books and were therefore judging TSP against Twitter feeds and Facebook posts.

TSP is literature for those who haven't read a book since school.

As I'm still hoping that my Monarch's Way walk will happen (complete with Stuart Kings in trees of course) I've been thinking about how Charles II dealt with this event, his 'Great Escape'.

He retold the story a few times, once to Samuel Pepys who recorded it and there is agreement that he was really consistent about chronology and detail. I think if one account has added (not changed) information it could be put down to someone remembering the most stressful weeks possible, where they were literally running for their life with a massive price on their head. Sometimes things come back later.

There is also a high regard for the very ordinary people who risked their lives for him and he continued friendship with and support of long afterwards, there are lovely accounts of his friendship with the quite poor yeoman Pendrell brothers from Boscobel for instance.

Interesting that a King in his glory could show genuine appreciation (and tell the truth, acknowledging others) but it seems beyond the misanthropic Salray.

Given Sally's fondness for borrowing (cough plagiarising cough) other authors' work, I've been wondering if her next book should similarly misappropriate the title of Spike Milligan's first war memoir and be called Mumsnet: Its Part in My Downfall.

....and in the fulness of time, once TW shuffles off the mortal coil, I could envisage 'borrowing' of Spike Milligan's gravestone epitaph 'I Told You I Was Ill'.

👏🏻😃👏🏻 brilliant!
“Shuffles off” or pushed by wife?😉
Book title: “I told you he was ill!”

I read a review of a biography of Gerald Durrell, which said that someone painted graffiti on his house.

It reminded me of TWS, which says that the cider farm was graffiti'ed and that those who did it "must have read the book".

With all these lobsters, chickens, dead parrots, Gerald Durrells and damp squibs, I'm starting to feel like I bought a zoo (Dartmoor reference intended)!

TWS is a very “self deprecating” book throughout. All the way through it, the reader is being subjected to these sorts of thoughts from the author. She wants her readers to embrace them, to reach out and comfort them and lift them up, sing their praise. All of it, especially the created dialogue between them and Bill is designed to make them saintly. I keep having to specify “in the books” because I don’t want there to be any confusion about actual events and what she wrote was true. In the books, “Sam” is very pleased, ecstatic in fact… and Sally writes his dialogue, she’s in control of it… but poor Raynor doesn’t seem to understand “Sam” At all and repeatedly gets upset and confused, thinking he is the opposite of pleased and then we have the full breakdown and the notion that Haye Farm doesn’t belong to them, they mustn’t get attached. Everything is so contrived to siphon sympathy from people. A narcissist needs supply and these two seem to run on other people’s empathy.

I've just been pondering 'if Saltim were Mumsnetters'.

Salray: 'I suspect my DH is a hypochondriac. Is he being unreasonable? What should I do? Please be kind!'
Timmoth: 'Man here! I suspect my DW is a kleptomaniac. Is she being unreasonable? What should I do?'

Other suggestions welcome!

I just remembered an observation I made weeks ago but never put it out there...it seems curious that RW wrote about the house graffiti in TWS and the cover of HNTDDD has the Dal Dy Dir part as what looks like a yellow spray paint effect on an old stone wall (i would assume the Welsh farmhouse).

"A narcissist needs supply and these two seem to run on other people’s empathy."

Yes, and this empathy includes that from all of the "professionals" involved in publishing her books who somehow still seem to believe in her. One has to wonder how professional they are, or indeed how unintelligent and idiotic they are to miss the glaringly obvious wool that was pulled over their eyes. And if it really is about just profit, egos and reputation, shame on them.

I've always thought that was kind of hilarious -- I mean, Occam's razor. What's more likely, that some random kids with a few beers in them were acting the maggot with spray paint and drew a penis on an uninhabited farmhouse (which, in fairness, is what TW says), OR that someone read and disliked TSP, somehow got hold of the names of the new tenants, put two and two together and decided to express their opinion of their (former) homelessness on the walls?

SW emotes: Someone must have read the book; they know we’ve been homeless. That’s why it says “scum” and now it won’t wash off. I should never have let it be published. This is what happens when you let people see into your world.

That's a classic instance of combined SW glumwashing and Main Character Syndrome. It's not pleasant that a house you're about to move into got graffitied, no. But it's a bit of a reach to bring it back to a negative review of your bestseller!

I think that's what it's about. Like the imaginary disapproval of 'tramps' from people on the SWCP and the ill-fitting boots in LL, and of course TW's 'illness' throughout all the books, the interpretation of the graffitti here is reminding us that the Walkers are loveable victims, down on their luck and hapless and encountering prejudice, despite the fact that SW's bestseller is earning nicely, she's sought after for literary events and interviews, and their new landlord, a huge fan, is contemplating signing over this house to them because of his regard for them.

But SW works very hard to make sure we never see them as comfortably-off, sought-after, and in a position to pick and choose.

I cannot comprehend what a criminal profile of these offenders, who spray graffiti because they have read the book and dislike homelessness and a terminal illness, would be like? It beggars belief to imagine what characteristics they would have? They have read TSP, hate the Winns, and go to this very out-of-the-way farmhouse to spray it?

I had heard of all the glumwashing in the books but not the scumwashing!

@BrandyAndLovage @SableGules yes, thank you. Exactly! She fills in this void… she sees an opportunity to make pretend scapegoats of themselves and seizes it. By feigning this catastrophic reaction to the graffiti and making it personal, she’s turning the reader against these mystery locals before we even know who they are. She is probably paving the way for the fallout caused by her and Tim, which very definitely did happen before she wrote that book. She has been able to say that those people had sour grapes all along. It’s part of her character to piss people off, but in her books she’s a perennial victim of other people and their abuse.

I don't think there is any detailed analysis of the Salt Path readership. But given the book's subject matter and age and sex of the author, I'd guess it is overwhelmingly middle-aged, middle-class women.

Not a demographic known for spraying graffiti on remote empty buildings. Or anywhere really.

… and certainly not on somebody else’s house. It’s a ridiculous thing for her to say. I see no end to her passion for scraping the bottoms of barrels.

Though I will obviously not shop anyone to the authorities should a large penis and the word SCAM appear on the gable end of a certain 'luxury Cornish retreat', and blurry CCTV footage emerge of a bunch of women wearing balaclavas and charabanc badges climbing over a wall with spray cans.

By feigning this catastrophic reaction to the graffiti and making it personal, she’s turning the reader against these mystery locals before we even know who they are.

I've just thought who Salray reminds me of. Liz Ruddy Jones. Endless glumwashing, catalogue of disasters usually entirely of her own making, a love of the finer things as her right accompanied by the financial sense of a drunken gnat and a deep belief that the entire world is and always has been out to get her. Oh and very limited writing skills made to go a long way.

Such a pity LJ left the SW, they'd have been excellent neighbours

MN Style and Beauty

"Man here ladies! I've been told my look is now verging on Dexy's Midnight Runners c 1980 but I don't agree. Also, how old do you think I am?"

ETA the " how old am I?" threads are something the Marquis de Sade wishes he'd invented. Just why?

We've touched on the graffiti before. Is there any evidence that Haye farmhouse was actually targeted or is it just another Salray claim?

Some possibilities:

• It was targeted, but as a second home given the affordable accommodation crisis for locals and low paid staff
• It was targeted but by someone who knew of the thefts and false health and walking claims
• It happened in the past at the house in Wales, not Cornwall, and by someone who knew of the theft from the Hemmings and unpaid bills
• It didn't happen at all, rather Salray had seen it watching daytime telly, such as an old episode of Midsomer Murders, and borrowed the scenario because it fitted her victim agenda.

Gransnet
Timmoth: Alright ladies?? 😜😉😜 Cheeky chappie here!
Mumsnet
Timmoth: Alright laydeez? <twinkle twinkle!> 😜😉😜
Style and beauty
Timmoth: I’m too sexy for my scarf, too sexy for my scarf! Woof! I’m too sexy for this book! (This bleddy book that I’ve been saddled with) Not ‘arf! I’m too sexy for this trig point, too sexxy for this trig … tooooo sexxxxxxeeeeee.. 🔥🔥🔥

Mn Style and Beauty II: 'I don't know how it is, but other women are always so elegant, and I really hate it! As I am clearly too much of a Windswept Creature of the Coastal Cliffs to start a townie regime of sleek blowdries and manicures (ugh! Think of the brand!), can you suggest ways in which I can make other women around me look less elegant, please? DH has a wandering eye and I've caught it wandering in the direction of someone with a choppy bob and kitten heels...'

@HatStickBoots I am weeping! Brava!

@SableGules

MN Style and Beauty

@ SalrayRocksandtheCharanbancsucks, interesting username. Possibly the crumpled linen lab coat thing is a step to far in the direction of studied yet careless rural elegance. Lose it. I wouldn't worry about the vixen with the choppy bob because Chloe isn't going to give him a second look, for many, many reasons. HTH.

<Best Margo Leadbetter persona> Oh no officer, it certainly was not us! We were invited here to test-drive the Wellness Retreat.

Time to get the threads sponsored by Tena Lady!!!