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 don't think we can make any assumptions about the real feelings or involvement of 'Julie' (or Dave) one way or the other at this point.

Thank you to pps for not posting real names openly on the thread.

Things go quiet for a little while and then up pop BBC Wales and Julie!

D&J from Up North. When I talk about them being willing accomplices, I mean that they seem happy to go along with their names in TSP of Dave and Julie from Up North. Of course, at this stage we can have no idea about their real feelings and how much they knew about the real facts behind TSP.

I am clear that there are only two villains of this piece. However, we have all pooled information because of interest, yes, but also because we are incensed by this behaviour - especially in relation to the truly vulnerable.

D and J would know if they bumped into the Walkers x 4 in Dorset in an 'unflinchingly honest' true story and when they went on holiday with them (as above, in my post).

As you say, at this point we simply can't know. But, others (whose path they have crossed (like Bill Cole and Ruth Saberton) who thought they did knew Sal and Tim and treated them as good friends, subsequently realised that they had been horribly duped.

On the meeting four times in Dorset thing, Bill Cole, when asked by Ruth Saberton whether he wasn't a little hurt at the way in which he'd been portrayed as a soft-handed, designer-sunglasses-clad City trader in TWS, said something about 'Oh, you know how people need to change things for publishers' (as recounted on the CH podcast).

Again, also on the CH podcast, and dealing with his puzzlement when reading LL and realising that the 'magically lit up like a Christmas tree' DAT scan supposedly happened at exactly the same time as TW told him he'd been told not to make plans for after Christmas, Bill Cole emailed SW asking for clarification and again saying something about how he gets that editors put pressure on for certain narrative beats, and was that the case here?

I suppose it's possible that D and J accepted being represented as having met the Walkers in different circumstances to the real ones because they thought SW was 'under pressure' to do things a certain way for narrative effect.

It's certainly the case that they're pretty much the only people who appear multiple times across all three books and are represented positively, so there isn't, in their case, the hurt of realising you've been represented as a monster in a supposedly 'unflinchingly honest' book.

Julie and Dave would obviously know when they had met/holidayed with the Walkers. But they could easily excuse all the discrepancies in dates and places as necessary in the interests of protecting privacy and/or 'editorial requirements'.
I think they were duped along with all the other good people the Walkers met and believed their stories about losing their house and Moth's illness.

Sorry @HatStickBoots, I didn't mean that I thought that they knew all along, I meant that when Chloe's article came out and Sally's criminal behaviour was revealed, Julie would have stuck by Sally, if she works with ex offenders it probably wouldn't faze her.

Wouldn't it be lovely if the Walkers said sorry to Julie and made a big donation out of all the money they've made to the charity she works for?

Somehow I can't see it happening.

I see what you mean @Freshsocks it is a possibility. If she hadn’t known the truth by that point though, it would have been a shock and would take months to process.
If she knew the truth all along, is it possible that she counselled Sally Walker in the period following the thefts from the estate agent, organised by the police perhaps? Or is her job a coincidence and one that Sally Walker would have tiptoed around on eggshells when meeting her and developing a friendship? I do think Julie provides a much needed authenticity to Sally Walker’s tales.

@HatStickBoots If she knew the truth all along, is it possible that she counselled Sally Walker in the period following the thefts from the estate agent, organised by the police perhaps?

Salray made her getaway from the police so I think this is unlikely.

Yes, this. So far there has never been any true accountability, no genuine remorse for anything least of all for writing a series of books that duped millions of people, claimed prizes and awarded special treatment for the author that was not earned. I don’t believe Sally Walker is capable of forming attachments to people outside of her small sphere with Moth and her kids. A semblance of friendship perhaps but probably based on what that person can do for her.

I hadn’t thought of that.

I think Julie's job is a coincidence, that it has provided SW with considerable material/inspiration and, since the story of criminality broke, has probably meant she's been more inclined to extend sympathy to SW than the average person.

This is the thing, Dave and Julie are either supportive or just wanting to keep out of this whole thing. I don't think it would do Julie any harm professionally, if supporting ex offenders is her job, no judgement is made.

Based on what has already been put in to the public domain by Salray and by 'Julie and Dave', I think it is fine to leave the links and information already posted up. I would recommend that the real names and further details of the real lives of 'Julie and Dave' aren't posted openly on the threads at this point. Do feel free to PM me in confidence as usual if you have any doubts about posting something or if you'd like me to pass something on on your behalf.

Let's hope she will agree to speak to Our Chloe, although it is of course her right to choose not to.

Extra cider and fudge rations to the charabancers involved!

I imagine Chloe has moved on to other investigations now, tbh. I think her bread and butter was a very different type of investigation, as suggested by Gas Man and Lucky Boy and the other stories she mentions working on -- my sense was that she was a bit taken aback by how her most apolitical story turned out to be her biggest hit, and perhaps that she wasn't best pleased by this. (Maybe I'm wrong...)

I looked at the Mn AMA and CH says she'd seen photos of 'Julie and Dave' at a PSPA charity event but hadn't been able to trace them as she'd never discovered their real names.

She was putting something out about HNTDDD and she's also interested in any new developments from such a big story, so watch this space.

But they were under their spell surely? Not so much willing, but hoodwinked. We will likely never know how they feel as i can't imagine they would want to bother with any media attention. Unlike Ros and Polly who had experienced theft and knew it was all lies and knew the real SalTim, J&D have only ever known RayMoth and just learned of any deceit. At most they probably feel betrayed, depending on whether they believe Sal's breathy claims of innocence or not.

Julie follows Sal on IG.

I wonder whether the penny might have dropped that Moth was maybe not quite as ill as he claimed, when this photo of Moth on Offa's Dyke during the LL walk in Aug 2021 (a week or so since she had seen him on the PW), popped up on her IG feed!

Oh, it's just Moth being Moth?

New post on Instagram from SW today, incidentally, in case no one else flagged it. Monty the dog digging on a beach, with a cutesy caption.

It's not actually a new photo though - it's a reposting of the same photo of Monty from an IG post of 12 Oct 2023 which was banging on about an upcoming Saltlines Tour.

Could her caption be a cryptic jibe towards the charabanc? Of course i could be reading far too much into it, but still...

Monty on the beach, digging with great purpose while the tide slipped quietly in and out behind him. Entirely convinced there was something worth discovering just a little deeper in the sand.

Dear me. That seems a poor show. Imagine, SW re-using old material!

Come on, SW. Let it all hang out. Post a photo of TW at his trapeze class, or holding a side plank for ten minutes or diving off a yacht in Monaco.

Ha!

I agree with Monty if not his duplicitous owner. There's more to discover, of that I have no doubt.

If only Monty could write a tail-all autopawography.

Or this bit @YourMoneyforFrothingandYourChipsforFree:
while the tide slipped quietly in and out behind him

Have Saltim been quietly slipping in and out of their Cornwallian guilded cage? Perhaps they even go on excursions to France, Timmoth swimming the channel with Salray on his back?