Thread 26 : 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 25 IS FULL

Please see the OP of Thread 25 for all the links to The Observer's reporting and podcast series, our threads one to 24 and so on.

After 25,000 posts there are still new things to discuss:
BBC Sounds - Secrets of the Salt Path - Available Episodes
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.

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 excellent podcast series The Walkers (link in Thread 25) 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, especially where details are unclear or still emerging. Remember, even Hollywood rabbits attract the odd flea: please do not engage with drive-by scolders 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 over 8 months we have done amazingly well together for 25 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.

As ever, as we embark on our 26th thread riding the community charabanc, keep to the path, no saltiness, eat fudge and drink cider.

NO POSTS PLEASE UNTIL THREAD 25 IS FULL: www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5485730-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?

The homelessness angle could have come from Julie and her work with ACE for Caritas Care. They have a big focus on homelessness.

Chpt 4 of TSP ( Rogues and Vagabonds) is lifted from an article about the 1824 Vagrancy Act in the Pavement Magazine by a QC in 2010 for which Sal contributed two articles in May and Sept 2017, the latter namechecking ACE Caritas for whom Julie ( from Up North) worked.

There's absolutely no corrections to any of the "original story" (bad investment, homelessness, terminal illness etc) in that Spanish webpage. However I wonder if it's an old page - there's no mention of LL or the film, and the last sentence speaks in the present tense of TWS being at no 1 in the Sunday Times list.

I'm sure the latest iteration of SW's wiki page hasn't passed people by, but just on the offchance, can I say that I'm enjoying its explanation of how TSP wasn't her first book (with background information on autobiographical features), and the new para entitled "deceptive practices" I'll copy it here in case the page gets altered again!

Writing career
Despite Winn claiming that The Salt Path was the first book she had ever written, her first book was actually How Not to Dal dy Dir, a novel, published in 2012 under the pseudonym Izzy Wyn-Thomas. This was self-published through the Winns' company, Gangani Publishing, and had a small print run. Some of the plot of the novel is similar to events in the non-fiction book The Salt Path as well as to facts uncovered by The Observer, with the female protagonist stealing tens of thousands of pounds from her employer, getting arrested, taking out a loan to pay back her employer, and ultimately losing her house when she fails to repay the loan.

Deceptive Practices
In 2019, Winn was awarded the £10,000 Christopher Bland Prize for debut novelists after deceptively representing The Salt Path as her first book, despite it being her second.

@Mauvish1 : "I'm sure the latest iteration of SW's wiki page hasn't passed people by, but just on the offchance, can I say that I'm enjoying its explanation of how TSP wasn't her first book (with background information on autobiographical features), and the new para entitled "deceptive practices""

I'm waiting for a Wikipedia editor to swing into action and undo recent changes on the basis that they aren't relevant.

I am doing the dance of Smug here. Well, I'm swinging my cider from side to side and humming a bit. I'd like to kiss whoever made those additions.

It's all right, I'd spit my fudge out first.

@MulberryBrandy ...i think quite likely...@ThompsonTwin has previously found that RW set up her IG account a day after her agency Graham Maw Christie did in Oct 2016. It seems like too much of a coincidence for it not to be connected.

From future sci-fi blockbuster "Unpaid Runner", speech of Ray(nor) Batty:

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Cats herding llamas in the shoulders of the Andes. Our harvest being Summer in a glass. Doing I-beams on trig points near climbing the tall house gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to ... go on The One Show."

I don't know how these things work but is it possible that for 6 months they worked on LSB and she said to Jennifer Christie I am learning a lot about homelessness through a friend and they then gear it towards that. This would mean that Sally lies to and flatters BI in what she says to them, of course.

It's really interesting looking at the editors, their history and what else they've edited. The most prolific is a chap who seems to be a Proper Walker (not a WW, to remove all doubt) judging by what other pages he's listed as contributing to. I'd like to think he's been beyond irritated by the claims in TSP etc if he's tackled glaciers.

Blade Runner based on Philip K. Dick's epic 'Do androids dream of electric sheep?'. Wonder what he would have made of TSP!

I think that is a fair assumption. If RW did have Jen Christie as her agent by Oct 2016, it suggests everything after re: the publishing backstory of writing LSB for Moth, articles in BI and Pavement was all a rather cynical marketing strategy to create a brand. Something I have long suspected.

Blade Runner based on Philip K. Dick's epic 'Do androids dream of electric sheep?'. Wonder what he would have made of TSP!

I think you mean to paraphrase, Do androids dream of Smotyn?!

Great, thanks they're going to be added to my list. So at no. 7 we have:

The Salt Path - The Influences 2013-2017

Graham Maw Christie Agency
They say they grew their reputation as a specialist non-fiction agency. Raynor Winn and her agency set up Instagram accounts within 24 hours in October 2016. They are warmly acknowledged in TSP : my incredible agent Jennifer Christie from Graham Maw Christie.... Also Jane Graham Maw, for her help and hospitality.

@Vroomfondleswaistcoat, admit it, you went and became a Wiki editor specifically to make sure the ‘Raynor Winn’ page was accurate, didn’t you?

To add, this is rather pertinent from JC's bio on GMC website...

I am keen to see memoirs with a distinctive voice and timely themes [insert "walking & nature"]; general non-fiction that blends personal narratives [insert "terminal illness"] with broader societal issues [insert "homelessness"].

I'd be fascinated to know what % of GMC's revenues since 2018 were generated by the phenomenon known as Raynor Winn....

Hardly surprising that they are reluctant to strangle the goose that laid the golden eggs!

You wouldn't guess from the Graham McGraw Christie hagiographical comments about their star author Raynor Winn on their website that there had been a little trouble in Paradise of late!

"Raynor is also a prolific speaker." They might be wishing that she had been a little less prolific.

She has become a regular long distance walker

Debate and discuss:

• they may have walked some of the SWCP from Minehead to LE from late July to mid Sept 2013

• they did two short walks (according to Polly) between Sept 2013 and June 2015

• they may have done a bit more of the SWCP from July to Aug 2015 when they met the Parsons

• a bit more in 2016 when they bumped into Anna at the Costa Rican cafe

• they did a 2 week walk in Iceland in 2019

• they did do some if not all of a walk from Cape Wrath to Polruan in 2021

• they walked the 120 miles Thames Path for PSPA awareness in 2024

• Sal walked 75% of the C2C Path in Feb 2025

Maybe that is indeed 'regular' (ie walking some of 4 long distance paths in 12 years)

But how much do they really enjoy walking when it isn't part of a commercial ploy to get a book published?

I don't know, but I do find it interesting that when they were living at Haye Farm from 2018-2023 nobody locally ever saw them out walking the plethora of local footpaths in the area and when they were staying with Polly for 18 months (whose farm was located bang slap on a major LDP) they apparently never embarked on this LDP for prolonged periods despite the claims in TSP that long distance walking was a cure for Moth's CBD.....

oh @ThompsonTwin you and your facts, eh? 😉

I started listening to the BBC series this evening. I like that they've given OC credit where credit's due. I do like Aimee-Ffion Edwards' voice (love Slow Horses, us) and it really throws into contrast how awful SW is as a narrator.

Have this in my head now.

Oh, wasn’t their strange lack of walking at Haye Farm because TW was too terribly feeble to walk the two-mile loop around the farm — mysteriously, despite having spent several years living a ‘wild, green life’ where he was outdoors everyday working? Until SW decided the cure was clearly to walk the length of the country? 😀

You are quite right, though. That’s all we know that they walked, and it’s probably an over-estimate in some cases. In fact, looking at your list, the only walk they purport to have walked that we know for sure they walked all of was the Thames Path, because of the witnesses/accompanying walkers. Possibly TW’s marathon for the same reason.

But no, there’s no particular sign of enjoyment of walking when not required for a book or as an alibi for them being public-spirited fundraisers for TW’s dubious illness.

When I do a search for a topic, related to this whole saga, it is interesting how often our thread is thrown up. There are some rich pickings very early on, like this very reasonable contribution:

fridascruffs · 06/07/2025 16:40

I just read the Observer article and was shocked to read that 'Moth' has supposedly had CBD for 18 years. I don't think anyone survives that long with it. I was only commenting to someone the other day that he must be getting properly compromised by now. I'm actually walking the coast path at present (no, not inspired by the book) and so many people mention the Salt Path to us. I read it a few years ago, I thought she was a good writer although yes, vague about the loss of the house, but I know people local to where they lived after they walked (described in their next book) and how the orchard was so run down... It apparently wasn't at all run down, they misrepresented what had happened there, but it seems the misrepresentations are legion.
How disappointing.

This is the same as @ThompsonTwin was saying through knowing locals in that area. What particularly interests me is that this was written before Bill Cole was featured in The Observer - that was the following weekend:

https://archive.ph/5vJ8y

I really wish I had - although I might have been a little bit less circumspect.

BBC podcast episode 6

Nice to hear us get a mention!
It seems that these threads will forever be linked with the unmasking of SalRay. Well done @DisappointedReader !

I’m outside the UK. so still only have access to the first episode of the BBC Wales podcast — can anyone who’s listened to most or all say whether it’s provided any significant new information or new testimony?