Thread 27 : 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 26 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:
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? | Mumsnet

New posters joining us in the genuine spirit of our civil discourse are always welcome. It would be helpful to get the background from some of Investigative Journalist Chloe Hadjimatheou's excellent exposé items before posting. Chloe's podcast series for The Observer 'The Walkers' covers most things:
The Walkers: The real Salt Path | The Observer
Another suggestion:
BBC Sounds - Secrets of the Salt Path - Available Episodes
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 nearly a year we have done amazingly well together for 26 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.

We are still here after 26,000 posts and fast approaching our one year anniversary together on 6th July 2026, 12 months on from the start of our first thread in response to Our Chloe's somewhat stunning initial exposé. Little did we know what else would come out. Our longevity comes as both a total surprise and a pleasure (mostly!). We've seen charabancers come and go, come back again, delurk and join us for the first time. All are welcome. Threads have both filled up in a day and moved at a more stately pace. Thank you everyone for sharing your time, thoughts, opinions, experience, questions, sleuthing (there's that word!), kindness (there's that other word!) and great humour with me and with each other. As ever, as we embark on our 27th thread riding the community charabanc - this time all holding our brollies and fans aloft for much-needed shade and breeze - keep to the path, no saltiness, eat fudge and drink cider, (but not too much in the current heatwave).

NO POSTS PLEASE UNTIL THREAD 26 IS FULL:
www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5506717-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?

@ThompsonTwin, Moth and his Guatemalan herdcats made me howl with laughter and frighten an unfortunate deliveryman who was, unbeknownst to me, at the open front door and whom I think thought I was having some kind of medical episode.

I still wonder about the photo of Moth star jumping on Offa's Dyke that Sal posted on her IG feed!

• was the image real? A jump like that would challenge an Olympic gymnast!

• if it wasn't real, was it doctored and if so by whom? Was Alice involved?

• if you worked for the PSPA and came across such an image on Sal's IG feed, would you begin to get slight doubts about Moth's CBD diagnosis?

Remember SW is an adorable Luddite, who trails around the southwest with a cracked, ancient phone that's usually not working or out of charge, her husband claiming in TWS to own a non-smartphone that only made calls and sent texts, and their son had to explain to her what Twitter was. Aw shucks, she's so naive and adorable and non-tech -- 'Chatgpt? Whatever is that?'

I wonder if Sal ever came across this article (and then pinched the title!)

On Winter Hill - Yvonne Reddick

Just seen this in a Scottish bookshop. "Unjustly evicted" my arse.

I also exploded with laughter at @ThompsonTwin ’s pictures! Thank you for those, they’re incredible.
The photo of Moth star jumping is also incredible and I simply cannot understand why neuroscientists aren’t clamouring to study him. Is that image still there and if so, what comments did it attract?

I agree @Oeufs they really worked on their ‘out of touch’ with tech but embodying all the spirit of the hippie love children, image. She seemed to continue with that version through her interviews and books making the money she’d earned from the bestsellers as being somehow irrelevant to their life. She is rustic, thank you very much and the thought of not re-using a teabag ten times or sleeping in a tent fills her with trepidation.

I really enjoyed that, thank you.

The image is still there (it was to accompany the announcement on 21/5/2025 that the courts had decided to allow wild camping on Dartmoor) but there were no comments allowed and Sal doesn't specifically identify the location where the photo was shot. It's only by locating another shot on Sal's IG feed with the same skyline and cloud formation (which has shifted slightly) that was taken on Offa's Dyke during the LL walk, that you can identify where the photo was supposedly taken!

Blimey! Thank you @ThompsonTwin ! One wonders why comments were prohibited at that stage of their career 😏 I remember the photos with Dave and Julie where “Moth” looks fitter than any of them yet the CF had broken down in tears and told Bill Cole he wasn’t going to live beyond the next Christmas.

I agree, these book cover blurbs are an insult. Too late to do anything with the original copies but I hope the reprints have all that removed.

Comments would have been active at the time. She disabled comments for all IG posts following the exposé and is only now allowing comments on her most recent posts.

Do you think that that particular photo is a photoshop and he was kneeling down? I tried to jump like that this morning and it’s really difficult!

And the lanyard or whatever he's wearing around his neck is hanging down and suspiciously static for such an energetic jump.
A faked photo? Surely not.

My last ChatGPT imagining

Moth turning out for the Dallas Cowboys on a day off from crop spraying in Texas

Only fair that Ray should make an appearance - no prizes for guessing where this shot comes from!

@HatStickBoots I enhanced the lighting to see it more clearly. I think it is real, which only goes to show how Tim really wasn't ill.

These AI pictures are fantastic, well done to the people who created them. When I look at the cat herding picture I can hear either the theme music to Bonanza or the film The High Country 😀

The photo of TW's star jump really is an insult to those that do have CBD, I feel sorry for any person with CBD being told by a relative "look what TW can do, you try, you do it, you'll be better for it!" The Walker clan are utterly shameless in their deception.

Out of idle curiosity I have pulled out SW's trilogy (not to re-read, I hasten to add) But to read the quotes and promotional reviews on the covers. I was wondering if any of the reviewers post OC's Observer article and podcast feel that their reviews that were given in good faith at the time of publication are still valid after the expose?

On TSP:

A beautiful, thoughtful, lyrical story of homelessness, human strength and endurance - The Guardian

The most inspirational book of the year. Conveys the human capacity for endurance and the regenerative power of nature - The Times

A tale of triumph; of hope over despair of love over everything - The Sunday Times

etc.

On TWS:

Extraordinary - The Observer [it certainly was, it was completely bogus!]

Notions of home are poignantly explored ... her evocations of weather, landscape, the sea and her love for her partner, Moth ... are wonderful - The Guardian

TWS confirms Raynor as a a natural and extremely talented writer ... so moving it made me cry - Sophie Rayworth

etc

My hardback copy of LL does not have any critic or review comments.

Now post OC's articles, do these glowing reviews have any validity now that tawdry criminality of SW and TW is now revealed. And now the real truth is known and in the public domain (not SW's version of the truth) would the reviewers really want to have their praise permanently linked to a bogus memoir? Could the reviewers either request or insist that their comments or reviews be removed as they were given in good faith of the book being an honest memoir? And by the comments remaining it could be considered a form of misrepresentation or misleading to the book buying public.

I've just tried jumping like TW** and getting your legs and arms up isn't difficult, but to get that high off the ground you'd need to be spring-heeled Jack.

The photo may be faked, but I'm inclined to think that maybe the photographer was very low on the ground to give the illusion of height. I don't think it's a mock up of a kneeling photo because his feet look to be slightly lower than his knees. I'm sure, if the jump happened in that spot, that the photo must have been manipulated; it looks as though any glare or errant rays from the sun (as shown in the photo without TW) have been removed. You'd also need to shoot dozens of photos (which would be exhausting for the jumper), or shoot as a reel and pick out that one frame, as the chances of getting it right first time would be very low.

Now given that Sal only has a simple brick phone and is completely unversed in more sophisticated technology, who could have done that, I wonder.

** For the benefit of veracity, I don't have CBD!

Oh, TW probably trained at the Bolshoi in one of his many other lives, when not playing football, herding llamas with cats, and being an ecowarrior called Moth who heroically manacled himself to threatened trees or lurked with Swampy in tunnels under future motorways. Maybe he was a promising young member of the corps de ballet when the siren call of SW's woodcreature charms drew him back to a Staffordshire college cafeteria and that fatal Mars bar.

That is my favourite yet! 🤩 Fantastic! Does the Ai manipulate her facial expression too or was the original photo of her like that? I’ve never used chat gpt to know these things. Very, very poignant moment when Ray looks the future and sees herself as half of a pasty.
👏👏👏

Yes, I’ve said exactly the same thing about those reviews! I also think of the books that Raynor Winn has been asked to provide a little tagline or foreword for 😬
I definitely think those reviews contributed to its success because they are reputable sources. So many people conned!

I wonder if Moth would ever be invited to appear on the panel of 'Would I lie to You?' with David Mitchell.... (For some reason ChatGPT has mixed up 'Would I lie to You' with 'Who do you think you are' !!!!

Moth out for a walk in Polruan, with Lettuce!

Thank you @YourMoneyforFrothingandYourChipsforFree 😀 It really is a pity that we can’t have a neurologists’ convention and show them the miraculous proof here that perilous walking on a diet of noodles and fudge not only cures CBD but frightens the hell out of it. I think Moth may be the new Chuck Norris.

😂🤣 Moth and the tortoise!