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?

Yes, it was able to be ordered on The Guardian, and other outlets, in July and suddenly was put back to Jan 2027 (still a year before OWH!). There was never any explanation and it still says able to be ordered, the end of Oct, and the same date of publishing in Jan 2027 now.

The most recent IG post seems to be of Constantine Bay in N. Cornwall.

Sal previously shared a number of photos on IG showing her and Moth at Constantine Bay which purport to come from their SWCP walk in 2013. The tent is pitched at a different spot in the most recent IG post so probably a more recent shot as well as the fact that the photo is taken with much more more modern phone camera than the one in 2013.

Maybe Sal is retracing some of TSP for an addendum in OWH in order to put the record straight and clear up "misunderstandings" about TSP in the media....

These IG posts - landscape, animals, one backpack, one pair of boots - only leave the sceptical with conjectures that she really can't let it go, can she?

She has a long time to post these 'fetching' images - how many fans will stay on board until Jan 2028, I wonder?

Thanks @ThompsonTwin 🙂

These photos…. Looking at them now and knowing the truth, sheds a new light on them. Sal in particular, arms thrown out wide and laughing, when I first saw that I thought “Good for you! You’re doing the best you can in the most awful of circumstances, you’re not giving in. Indomitable spirit was a phrase I applied to her back then. Now I look at it and think, how can you be so pleased with yourself after everything you’ve done that’s led to your homelessness? Moth doesn’t look too happy. Back then I thought, it’s obvious why but he’s also trying to carry on. Now, it looks as though he’s thinking how stupid, what a mess. Arrrgh.

But did SHE take the photo? Nobody has seen her out and about - is it a possibility that she's sending her kids or any friends she has left out to mock up pictures that she can put on her Insta? She's not posting selfies, is she?

@Vroomfondleswaistcoat I suspect she’s pitching the tent, and at the most staying for a few hours but certainly not overnight. The recent photo is on a beach close to where they live. I think it’s likely that Sal has changed her hairstyle/colour so she isn’t so easily recognisable and hence the reason for no selfies.

Maybe she has worked out how to use ChatGPT to mock up images....

I have wondered whether or not she takes the photos, myself. We know she’s a fraud, we know that Raynor Winn is a brand with its own PR department that handles SM etc. I don’t know what she’s doing with herself but the cosy image in home-made hand knits, fingerless gloves and a basket of blackberries she sold of herself is a far cry from the status symbol loving person she really is. What the hell was she doing with a folk band? She’s the antithesis of all things she sold themselves as. I also think she will have radically changed her appearance.

She wouldn't need to though. I suspect they've got enough people on their 'team' who could take a tent and a pair of boots to random locations and snap a few shots.

Of course, she might be out there herself too. Would she be sufficiently unnoticeable? Do we have any clues as to what time of day these photos are being taken? Because I suspect someone pitching a tent and taking these very deliberately staged pictures in popular places is going to be noticeable to passers by, yet we've no reports of anyone seeing her. So maybe she's sneaking out at dawn, quickly mocking up some shots and then scampering back into cover?

I have thought, for a long time, that she doesn't go out unless she has to. Remember, back in Pwllheli, the bookshop owner that knew Tim but hadn't seen Sally. I realise that seems strange with her fronting the folk group. the insane number of interviews and appearances at festivals, etc., but I think she always plunges in and takes whatever she can - because she knows it will come to an end when she gets found out.

That is the pattern throughout their lives together. He is everything she wants, and he is entitled to the best things of life, so she takes everything she can to make money for those extras until it dries up. When it goes wrong it is never their fault - it is everyone else that grinds them into the dirt. They bleed everyone dry until they are exposed. That is why she won't give up now as she can't believe she can't rise from the ashes once more.

I'd love to read HNTDDD - I'm convinced it's all in there!

I know she's got a brass neck about ten feet long, but I'm not sure she'd want to risk being out in the open where people might see her. I think she's only escaped having people walk up to her and ask her what the hell she was playing at by the skin of her teeth. Would she want to expose herself to that? Even though she clearly thinks she'd walk away unscathed, it might give rise to some very unpleasant social media posts if people record the encounter.

I agree @BrandiedAromatics it does seem strange to front the folk band but then she was invited to by one of the wives and she clearly thought she was untouchable at that point and that nobody from the past was going to creep out and spoil things. The more she did as Raynor Winn the stronger she felt. I still can’t get over the interviews and appearances where she boldly lies and hob nobs with authors as though she has the talent to be in their world and has worked hard to get there.
The convenience of portraying a shy ‘woodland creature’ at first, was in her favour and had everything to do with being cowardly, hiding from the truth. I suspect that’s what she’s doing now, hiding but romanticising it like she did in the books as ‘Going to ground’. Her persecution complex and victim stance in full effect.

This made me chuckle so much. ‘Brass neck ten feet long’. Makes me think of the expression ‘wind your neck in!’ Only in this instance it’s so they can go out to the shops and pretend to be normal.
I agree. That would be an amusing scene to come across. Lots of women here have a similar look, but she’d be very recognisable if you took a double take because of that pinched expression and smirk. Why hasn’t she been seen?? 🤔

Two inside tent IG images (Portheras Cove and Constantine Bay) from Sal, some 13 years apart! Almost as if she is trying to stir up old memories from her IG followers, as if "nothing has changed"...

It’s a bit daft pretending to camp the SWCP now when we all know she lives right there. What’s the point? At least go a bit further afield!

And when she's supposedly publicising a book set on the C2C isn't she? I mean why would people want to see pictures of Cornwall? Where are all the pictures of the Lake District and Yorkshire? Why isn't she using THOSE to drum up custom?

It’s another example of how lazy they are. Minimal effort, especially if this current “content” has been fashioned by somebody else. It hadn’t actually occurred to me that they were still pretending to be wild camping but that’s exactly what this is! There’s been zero interest on her part for immersing herself into any of the Cornish cultural festivals that take place during the year or reporting on them and yet you’d be forgiven for thinking that she had fallen in love with Cornwall. Why isn’t she exploring, devouring the history and writing novels as she is purportedly such a good writer? These IG shots seem to serve the same purpose as screensavers.

I think she daren't have anything to do with Cornish culture. If she shows her face at some of the festivals or attempts to write anything relevant to them she runs the risk of everyone piling in and accusing her (quite rightly) of appropriating Cornwall for her own ends.

So she can't go out in public, unless she's going to skulk about in a wig and glasses, and she's working really hard to convince people that she's doing LOADS of solo walking, because Moth is... well, he's.... he's probably tied to the table leg to be honest.

I fully agree with your thoughts but even when she was everybody’s darling, she didn’t. I remember reading a magazine article for Cornwall Living, where a gent stood up at one of her literary appearances and proudly hailed her an honorary Cornish woman, but based on what? Perhaps her tour with Gigspanner convinced him. Even that was taken as an opportunity not to immerse herself and learn or write a wonderful new novel but to sell a theme, an idea, a myth of Raynor Winn, miracle curer and Mother Earth. I blame the PR dept for that. All style over content.
The solo walking … her and a team of stylists and photographers while Moth is apparently unable to accompany her, is a joke. They haven’t gone far. The little bylines as well which are about solitude and loving that feeling of being alone and having the ocean all to herself etc Who is that written for? I thought she couldn’t bear to be apart from Moth. I wish she’d give this up. It’s over and she’s flogging a dead horse. It’s cruel.

She might well be writing or have written a novel. I doubt very much she will be able to get it published. Her publisher and agent took her on on the strength of her 'unflinchingly truthful' memoir about walking, so likely wouldn't take a novel from her; her writing isn't really good enough to produce a novel that would sell and she can't sell it on the strength of her 'Raynor Winn' persona after the kerfuffle. Nobody will buy an at best average novel from someone they've never heard of, so she can't use another pen name.

Yes, I agree with all your points! I know why she hasn’t done those things and I don’t think it was ever her plan to, it’s just that I expected it from the character she presented herself as.

Apart from all the lies about the walk itself and the backstory about overcoming illness and homelessness and betrayal, the TSP 'brand' is a wholesome mishmash of the SWCP, nature, Moth's jeopardy, and wild camping. Maybe the sporadic anodyne IG posts play to the TSP brand and are targeted at her IG followers who, presumably, are being kept in suspense until her next work (OWH or something else) appears. Maybe PRH have told her to say nothing specific in her IG posts but keep her account ticking over.
Who knows? Maybe she is just bored being holed up 24/7 in St Veep.

There have been a fair few weak ‘celebrity novels’ written in the wake of a successful memoir that made them famous, though. (Though they’ve often tanked!) The one that comes to mind is Petite Anglaise — does anyone remember her? English blogger living in Paris, whose very popular anonymous blog got her fired from the accountancy firm she worked for, even though she never named herself or it until she was outed by a UK tabloid afterwards, when she took her former employers to a tribunal (and won damages).

She (real name Catherine Sanderson)) got a two-book deal from Penguin (as it then was). The first, a memoir, sold well, I think because it had all the stuff that had made her blog popular (living, working and dating in Paris, being a single mum to a cute small child, explaining aspects of Parisian life, billed as ‘Bridget Jones in Paris’ etc.)

The second, a novel about much the same thing (mildly chaotic single English mum dating in Paris, but with a completely different job substituted), didn’t do well, because she just couldn’t really write fiction. Plus I think that what her readers liked about her blog is that it was true, whereas the novel was just rather tired autobiography we’d already heard, masquerading as fiction.

I suppose my point is that Penguin, realising she’d used up all her life experience likely to be of interest in her first book, thought enough people would read a novel about the same shtick if it was by her. I don’t think it did well.

Isn’t it possible PRH thinks it’s worth a punt that readers engaged enough with the ‘Raynor Winn’ brand to keep believing through all the revelations will follow her into fiction?

The snag is that, like Catherine Sanderson, it would have to hit the same beats as TSP to engage the readership. Nature, indigene, spousal devotion, everyone else treating them badly, miracle recovery etc.

But Catherine wrote the second book of her two book contract as fiction. Sal will be out of contract after OWH (which is, allegedly already written). So PRH would have to give her a new contract and I really think that public feeling against her is still so high that any more books wouldn't sell. I can't see Sal signing a contract with a smaller advance than she's already had, but I can't see PRH wanting to commit to a large advance fee when the books might tank completely.

Sal is an unproven fiction writer (I'm not counting HNTDDD because nobody has read it) with an appalling personal track record. So, while if the Raynor Winn name could still entice people in, she might have been looking at a fiction contract just on the name alone (like the celebrities do, although most of those use a ghost writer), as herself she has no pulling power. In fact, just the reverse.