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

She also wrote about this pseudoscience nonsense in TWS and regurgitated it for interviews, including the one with Sally Magnussen. It is true plants emit secondary metabolites - they are volatile organic compounds. Whether the haze she mentions is a cloud of them is up for debate. Doing some basic background research, some have been shown to have potential health benefits when isolated. Meanwhile, others can actually be toxic. Nothing has ever been shown that walking through a wood breathing in these plant chemicals has any real effect whatsoever. Sure, likely great for general mental wellbeing, but curing the incurable? Sally is either very naive, bad at research or a complete charlatan....i suggest a bit of all 3.

Everyone benefits from green spaces, trees and walking and we know the importance of these. She’s behaving as though she and Moth have tapped into something extraordinary and that it has cured him in a way that merely strolling, gardening, living outside of a city, exercise machines and a healthy balanced diet do not. Moth didn’t thrive just by living and working “on the land” (she often uses that expression so I quoted it). Moth’s secret cure from non existent CBD has to be hard endurance and a diet of low calories and devoid of protein and fibre.

Likewise, I have heard Sally throw in neuroplasticity - as if she is very knowledgeable about this complicated area. She introduces this idea by saying "we used to think that the earth was flat". So, the implication is that we need to embrace the wisdom of this forward-thinking, self-appointed guru of the natural world.

Like, @YourMoneyforFrothingandYourChipsforFree I did some basic reading on neuroplasticity - which is the brain's way of forming and strengthening neural connections throughout life. What needs to be understood is that as well as beneficial adaptive processes there is another side which can be a harmful rewiring. Very much to be left to the professionals to communicate to the rest of us.

Please, let's hope she has been stopped in her tracks and there will be no more writings and wellness retreats from this detrimental brand.

There’s another reason why I’m pissed off that Raynor Winn and Moth aren’t real. If they had been the people we thought they were, they could have done some real good here in Cornwall (I thought they were settling here and were calling it home). We have to fight to keep our green spaces and conservation areas. Most recently, plans to create a holiday park on a disused army barracks, Penhale camp which had been refused by our county council due to much opposition with evidence of harm to the local wildlife was overruled by a government housing minister who has now given the go-ahead. This is a real blow.

original article
https://www.falmouthpacket.co.uk/news/24792617.plan-turn-barracks-holiday-park-cornish-coast/

Latest:

https://www.falmouthpacket.co.uk/news/25813703.cabu-holiday-park-cornwall-approved-near-holywell-bay/

Raynor and Moth with their eco warrior and bestselling author credentials could have made a big noise over this and given some much needed clout and support for the county.

Quite and from what we know also lacking in essential vitamins and minerals as well as protein and fibre and being dangerously low calorie, especially for the exertion they were apparently engaged in.

We've said that neither of them look substantially thinner after the alleged SWCP Boot Camp and I reckon we now know why.

OC has done a genuine public service by putting a thorough spoke in the wheel of any future 'wellness' money making madness.

Yes, she absolutely has! All they wanted to do with their fame and money was profiteer and exploit rather than contribute by putting their money where their mouth is.

I honestly didn't think they could shock me any more - but I was wrong. I have had to think through, what was shared yesterday, as it is this that disturbs me the most:

it seems that when the Walkers suddenly left Haye Farm it was they who put glue in the locks as an act of revenge against BC

I am outraged by the carpets but I have been introduced to the Walkers as people who steal. Steal from well-meaning employers and family alike. It is the malice that I still find unnerving.

The malice that blames Boscastle for not being open for the Walkers when it is closing time. And then berates the village for having endured a frightening natural disaster.

The malice that seeks to undermine the legacy of the late, great Rowena Cade of the Minack Theatre.

The aggressive action of choosing to glue the locks at Haye Farm is despicable.

What the hell did they DO with the stolen carpets? They presumably didn't own anywhere to put them into? Were they just carrying them around?

And as for 'we used to think the world was flat' - well not since about 300BC we haven't and the circumference was calculated in 240BC.

This all does sound like narcissistic rage. If ever there was any doubt. They don’t have empathy or sympathy. Yes, malice is a perfect word @BrandyAndLovage I don’t understand their reasons for any of that!

My thoughts exactly. Was it just spite?
Yes that was a ridiculous comparison, using an example like that. I could argue that Flat Earthers would disagree with it but that’s beside the point. On Mumsnet, we’d say “Tell me your dh doesn’t have CBD without telling me your husband doesn’t have CBD.”

Narcissistic rage manifesting as sheer spite, towards someone who had been nothing but good to them. I didn't think much about them could shock me after the disclosures, but this has.

Who knows who the ringleader/prime mover is? I err toward Salray, with the caveat that Timoth is exactly as bad as she is if he goes along with it. The fact is though, it wouldn't surprise me if it was vice versa. "To smile and smile and be a villain" is a thing.

Two for a good pair, as my old Nan would have said. Small, grudging, jealous and petty minded when all else is stripped away.

(Sorry, just feel outraged for Bill)

Completely agree and I feel the same outrage on Bill’s behalf.
“Small, grudging, jealous and petty minded” .. but somehow able to create a persona who is supposedly the opposite. Or is it always visible once the fake backstory is taken away? The woman surely must have a split personality to able to sit and talk to camera or in person as Raynor Winn, probably easier to camera and sticking to script.

Where is this and the locks thing from?

I'm wondering the same?!

Re: locks and carpets…. Pp’s post upthread replying to the question where they got that from… I thought there was an inference in pp’s post to the son’s deleted social media post (pp quoted ‘pathological liars who leave a trail of destruction in their wake’), so wondered if details on locks / carpets had been in the deleted post, or if the son had said these things at some other time?

I have to say that taking carpets with you when you move was definitely something that used to happen in the 1970s - and I don’t think it was considered theft then (presumably it would not have been listed in the items included..). I am visiting elderly dm at the moment, and just walked past the vibrant patterned wool Wilton carpet in one of the bedrooms, that came from the previous house. Bought new in 1974 (!), it is still going strong (I think my df used to despair that it would never wear out, so they could have replaced it with something a bit less overtly 1970s patterned!!).. They certainly don’t make carpets like that any more!!!

And glueing locks could have been an act of vandalism by random people to an empty property (unless the source was clear that they’d said they’d done it?), if it actually happened?

That was their nephew @Stoufer who wrote that post about pathological liars, not their son. Yes, I agree with you about the source. Unlike normal people, why would they need to remove carpets? I doubt they furnished that house because they were too stingy to even
pay the bills while staying there. They could have left the place nice, but they’re not nice people.

Oh yes - I remember! (Mistakes were made, sorry…!)

When I say “unlike normal people” I mean their reasons for taking them because they had plenty of money and didn’t need the carpets.

The idea of tenants taking carpets when they leave sounds odd to me.

I think the important point is that describing the Walkers as those 'who leave a trail of destruction in their wake' is the experience of all those who have encountered them. The writer, and former neighbour, Ruth Saberton juxtaposes the devastating storm, in January in Cornwall, with the trail that the Walkers' legacy has left.

We get a mention again and this is a sensitively written piece - she has been brave to share:

After the Storm

Thank you @BrandyAndLovage , beautifully written.

Yes, I wonder why it never seems to cross SalRay's mind that perhaps Tim improved so vastly when they were doing their walks not because it was 'curing his (non existent) CBD' but simply because he was getting fitter?

On those grounds I could tell everyone that running four miles a day will cure their asthma! I started running and don't need my inhalers any more - amazing!

But that is because my asthma was exacerbated by a lack of fitness. This is not a universal cure for all cases of asthma. Sal could just say that the increase in fitness experienced because of walking was good for Tim's health, but no, she has to be more DRAMATIC than that.

No, the nephew's deleted post had no such reference in it.

Have people just made this up about the glue in the locks etc. supposedly done by the Walkers?

Thanks for clarifying @SimonArmwrestler; i didn’t see the deleted post, but thought that was what pp (was it @ThompsonTwin, I can’t remember?) was obliquely referencing in their response upthread.

From my experience of the last 8 months and 25599 posts, I would be very surprised indeed if any of our regular posters made something up. Genuine mistakes are sometimes made of course but we do pride ourselves on our rigour.