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?

Wholeheartedly agree. Forever impressed by the words of Our DisappointedReader

The Salt Path scandal may have scared off US film distrib...

Haha first thought on seeing that picture was Nono not a fire in this weather! I fear I'm the sort of poster other posters are suggesting has lost her sense of proportion since the government alert...

I can imagine everyone who made that film, including the actors, is beyond frustrated. And I guess they can't publically attack the root source of their frustration - for all kinds of fairly obvious reasons: legal, commercial and personal. So they are reduced to a kind of generic seething, with a clutch at "lots of it is still valid" to try to redeem the situation.

Not seen the film (unsurprisingly!) but I guess the scenery is nice, and perfectly valid? (apart from where they are obviously walking the wrong way I suppose..)

"lots of it is still valid" to try to redeem the situation. @DierdreDaphne

Yes, thanks for the link @ThompsonTwin Love the last line of this article ....

Haha yes @BrandiedAromatics , nicely tart! 😅

He did not state which parts of the story were still valid.

Nice and salty!

Not sure if this has been shared...only published yesterday so I don't think it has. A bit more insight from GA about the scandal from Telegraph based on a Sunday Times piece which I can't access.

Perhaps most intriguing is GA was told the legal case was ongoing pre-scandal hence why the WWs couldn't talk about it. A convenient get out from the WWs.

(Click link below, scroll down to open the comments and the paywall popup won't load letting you read it.)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/08/16/gillian-anderson-salt-path-winn/

Thanks for the article @YourMoneyforFrothingandYourChipsforFree - I was interested that GA mentions the 'due diligence', the scrolling doesn't work for me, but here it is:

Gillian Anderson: I felt betrayed by Salt Path scandal

Interesting blog piece from a few days ago

https://tartaruspress.blogspot.com/2026/08/a-few-thoughts-on-salt-path-by-raynor.html?

Begins as:

Full disclosure: I decided to read Raynor Winn’s best-selling The Salt Path (2018) after I had seen all the controversy about the book. Stories published in The Observer newspaper since July 2025 suggest that important elements of Winn’s memoir have been fabricated, and authors of unreliable autobiography interest me. Primarily, I am fascinated by why they misrepresent themselves, then how they react when this misrepresentation is discovered. I am also interested in why some people are willing to continue reading authors whose integrity has been fatally undermined.

Yes, it is interesting @YourMoneyforFrothingandYourChipsforFree and I think this article carefully works through the aspects of TSP and the author's culpability. I like the way there is a positive for our friends who did believe Raynor Winn:

But perhaps there is even more to be gained from acknowledging when you have been fooled, and learning from the experience. We all make mistakes, and it takes a great deal of strength and humility to admit to them.

I do feel for GA and JI regarding the film. They will have signed up to do publicity well before the scandal broke and it must be incredibly hard for them to remain positive yet neutral.

They can't sing the praises of the book, of the Winn-Walkers, or any of the background to the film's story, all they can do is talk about the film as an isolated entity. And they are contractually obliged (if they want to work again) to be positive about that, whilst not saying anything negative against Sal or the writing of the book.

They must be constantly performing a mental dance in order to bring in viewers and yet not imply that they condone the lying, theft, fraud and pretence that is behind it all!

Ms Anderson said the couple met her and Mr Isaacs while promoting the film, but said they had not heard from them since the exposé.
She continued: “It must have been really unsettling, to be potentially, allegedly, not telling the truth on live TV.”

The careful wording in the above statement must be so difficult but then of course she’s a professional and practiced at reading from scripts. We all wondered how the two actors must have felt afterwards when discovering that it was all a charade. She thinks on their behalf, that it must have been unsettling, but they didn’t seem unsettled at all and on the contrary were taking this scam and running with it as far as they could with future plans in the pipeline and already that fourth book that was based on yet more nonsense. I think Ms Anderson might be giving the WWs an emotion (guilt, shame?) that neither really has. If they did, they wouldn’t have done it in the first place!

I wonder if she is ascribing the emotions to them that she feels herself?

Quite possibly, I did think of that myself.
Mentioning having not heard from them since the exposé sounds very much as though the actors had been keen to stay in touch. Interestingly, Ms Anderson doesn’t say anything in print about her initial thoughts on “Raynor Winn” being ‘guarded’ etc. Her intuition was spot on and like everyone else who met this woman, she brushed it off and made up reasons for it.

I just checked out On Winter Hill and all my results (which are probably AI generated because I can't turn the bloody thing off) say that it was published on 23 October 2025.

So I don't think we have to worry about our AI Overlords taking over the world just yet, when they can't even get a simple fact like that right. MUCH further down the page there's an article about publication being delayed, but there doesn't seem to be any update for a while and certainly no touting of a new release date, which I would have thought they'd be having to do to ramp up the publicity first.

So maybe it has been quietly shelved?

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/320471/on-winter-hill-by-winn-raynor/9780241484586

Unfortunately it’s still out there @Vroomfondleswaistcoat for January 2028.

I did find it eventually, but was encouraged (or confused by AI) by the first posts which said it was already published. January 2028 is still so far away that I wonder if the dates will quietly get pushed further and further back if the controversy rumbles on?

But perhaps they are just hoping that it will all die down before then .

A few pages ago it was mentioned by @ThompsonTwin that Visit Cornwall still has a page devoted to TSP. I have written to ask them why, asked if they’d seen or heard the various exposes etc some of which include interviews from the people and businesses who’ve been portrayed completely untruthfully and whose livelihoods had been affected. I asked them to take the page down or give it a rewrite. We’ll see what response we get.

Mmmmm. I received an automated reply to tell me that Visit Cornwall CIC entered into voluntary liquidation in October 2025 and is no longer operating.

That is strange because I looked at their page and they give up to date info. So I know what film is on at the Poly tonight .....?

“Cornwall Council are assisting this next phase to create a positive new era for destination management. This inbox is not regularly monitored.”
I don’t understand it either?

Pieces of Us is just starting now. It sounds really interesting, I’m going to watch the trailer.