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 can't remember what Chloe H said about 'Julie and Dave'

So the last that I heard was when Chloe was asked on 17 February 2026 - the Behind the Scenes meeting. She said that she had tried very hard to find them.

It is interesting that the two The Pavement articles have been there since 2017 ... until this morning, that is!

I’ve just managed to open up The Pavement magazine link?

July 12 2017 The Pavement she does say that Moth was diagnosed with a terminal illness on the same week that they became homeless… for some reason I thought that it wasn’t mentioned.. but in this one it definitely is.

It's definitely Julie. I made the same connection yesterday and confirmed it with other info, but wasn't sure if it was allowed to post here as her identity isn't "out there" in media coverage (much like how we avoid bringing the Walker children into it). Props to @ThompsonTwin for finding the Pavement article, which was crucial.

Alternative highs, published in The Pavement September 7th 2017 is still available to read.
She doesn’t mention Moth in this one.

Can you archive it please @HatStickBoots ? Just in case.

Yes, thanks @HatStickBoots it is this link:

the Pavement magazine - Alternative highs

The Pavement articles and the ACE Caritas focus on homelessness, raises the intriguing question. Did Sal get the inspiration for the homelessness focus of TSP from Julie?

As an aside, one of Julie's skillsets is 'crisis counselling'!

I don’t know how to archive…

Here’s Alternative Highs

https://www.thepavement.org.uk/stories/2155

Hidden Homeless

www.thepavement.org.uk/stories/2143

I know what you mean and realised after I posted the photo, earlier. However, it is Sally who has given the information and there were all the publicity photos, including these people Dave and Julie, on IG and PSPA. They obviously know that they went to Iceland with the Walkers in 2017 which was then fast forwarded in an honest and true book. So, I'm not sure.

I checked and they are already archived on webarchive.org. So no danger.

Ps thank you so much @Anythingbutheadlands 🌟 I fully understand your buzzing excitement! My hairdresser had her own choice words to say about “Raynor Winn”, so maybe you could share with yours too? You look fabulous!

RW is namechecked in this Pavement piece too https://www.thepavement.org.uk/stories/2277 ... yet again, perceived as an inspirational heroine against adversity. Galling!

For the working homeless is your job an extra burden or a way out of homelessness?
A large proportion of homeless people are also working. If you search the internet or if you work in a sector pertinent to homelessness you are likely to come across endless stories of inspirational people who are carrying out their duties despite having no fixed abode, or who have triumphed against adversity and turned a grim existence into a fairy tale, such as Raynor Winn who wrote an uplifting book about walking 630 miles along the South West Coast, The Salt Path, after her home was taken away.

For those of you who follow the Rest is Politics podcast, the gentleman in the middle attending an ACE Caritas coffee morning in 2019 may look familiar!

Julie is described in TWS and LL as being small. However, she appears quite tall in the photo - Rory Stewart is 5ft 8"

Thanks for reposting the links which work for me now. I'd archived them on archive.is before I saw YourMoneys post.

It's one of the many useful things I've learnt how to do from MN. Copy and paste the URL into your chosen archive site and click the save button. Tis brilliant.

Good afternoon everyone. I hope you are well today. Just catching up.

Heels?
Julie that is, not Rory.

Could be I guess.

In the Pavement article in Sept 2017, Sal says:

I was at the lowest point, homeless, with no hope for the future when I decided to go for a walk. By the time I stopped 600 miles later, it had literally changed my life. Not only had it given me the space and time to come to terms with the life-changing events I had gone through, it had also given me a sense of inner strength that would help me rebuild my life. Walking such a long distance, with a rucksack on my back that contained everything I needed to survive, empowered me in a way that nothing else has.

I discovered I wasn’t the only one to experience this transformation when I met the project manager of ACE, a Caritas Care charity project, who was also walking the path with a very large rucksack on her back.

Is she suggesting that she met the ACE project manager and discussed the ACE project with her while walking the SWCP (2015/2016?) or that this meeting took place later (2017) once they had become firm friends?

I'm feeling increasing anger on Julie's behalf.

She looks like a thoroughly decent person doing very good work on behalf of a very difficult demographic - no opportunity for appealing photos of cute children or animals in this sector. Supporting ex-offenders must be very hard work and require an extraordinary selflessness.

And yet she's been used by SW. 😡

Yes but they seemed to have been willing accomplices. They supported Moth's marathon effort in 2023 and walked the Thames Path with them in 2024, donating via justgiving on both occasions as Dave and Julie/Judy from up north!

@YourMoneyforFrothingandYourChipsforFree well done for working this out and well done too for the restraint and caution about sharing. I thought about this too hence avoided posting her name and also, as others have said, felt that it was Ok to make the connection public as all the information has been given by SalRay. But if @DisappointedReader needs to get the posts deleted I will accept the decision!

Every woman is described as being small by SalRay. It’s part of the glumwashing “poor me” narrative.

But 'accomplices' implies they were 'in on it'. I don't think there is anything to suggest that? Were they not just taken in, like everyone else?

I don't think it's possible to know precisely what the situation is. Or the psychology. I mean, there are apparently family members still supporting the Walkers, too, despite them having thieved large sums of money from family members, which is a lot less comprehensible in many ways.

I mean, 'Dave and Julie' haven't contacted Chloe H to say they were duped by the Walkers, but neither have they emerged, guns blazing, to defend the Walkers as upright people, one of whom is definitely, absolutely dying. We can't know what they think, and I respect anyone's right to keep schtum and not invite media scrutiny into their lives, when, as far as we know, they themselves have done nothing wrong.