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?

So grateful to you for this, @ThompsonTwin
I’ve been feeling a bit angry/hopeless from reading all the IG comments on those two recent posts - especially seeing a new poster banging on about how Sal hasn’t hoodwinked anyone, how everyone has their demons…and how the detractors should leave this “inspiring” couple alone. In that context it was good to see such a comprehensive round-up of the lies and unanswered questions.

A You GOV poll of 8,215 Americans on February 8th, 2018 found that only 84% had always believed that the world was round....

There will always be people (for many reasons) who are either unable or refuse to objectively analyse the evidence. I suspect, Sal will always have a core of cult supporters who believe "her truth". Nothing much one can do about that.

https://www.radionewshub.com/articles/news-updates/Misinformation-online-is-a-real-threat-to-public-health-says-top-NHS-doctor

Not just online, Penguin.

@ThompsonTwin That is a brilliant rounding up thank you. Just to add to one of your points:

• How come so few people in Polruan remember Raymoth if they lived there from 2014-2019? Apart from the village shop assistant (who referred to Ray as Raynor Whinge!), Tom Barrie Simmons and one other local who bumped into them a couple of times walking Monty, they remained completely unknown. Were they hiding from something? Did they in fact live in Polruan for a much shorter period than claimed (Sept 2016-Jan 2019)? Why wouldn’t Anna talk to OC?

I had a funny episode in Polruan back before Easter, this year. My companion and I walked the coast path from near Lansallos and walked down past the very narrow street with The Old Chapel. I went to the cafe and some women were talking outside and one said: "If you want a coffee this time of the year you'll have to go in the pub."

A few locals were sitting up at the bar and when the barmaid asked what we wanted I said that I was desperate for a drink because of our coast walk and she said "Oh yes, we know they've probably only walked from the car park". When I then replied it is funny that you should say that in Polruan - I was met by uncomprehending looks all round!

So I don't think the Walkers notoriety is well-known in Polruan. Oh, and the facade of the chapel is ridiculously grand for its setting. I wonder if the owner didn't want any bad publicity for it as she wanted to sell? It looks seriously run down.

The owner of the Old Chapel doesn't actually live in Polruan. She lives near Liverpool and spends very little time in Polruan. The people who ran the pub at the end of the street where the Old Chapel is located, never remembered meeting the Walkers.

I see Pen-y-maes is still on the market!

5 bedroom detached house for sale in Y Ffor, Pwllheli, LL53

@ThompsonTwin Was ‘Four Hares Ltd’ deliberately chosen as the name of the company set up to receive the Walkers’ ill-gotten gains?

I have a different take on this - I would say, rather than their speed, it shows how close the four of them are. I would go further and say how completely entwined they are. There is an ancient symbol that goes back to caves in China and other sites along The Silk Road. It is also represented in many medieval churches around Dartmoor - it is usually Three Hares (Tinners' Rabbits) but can be Four Hares. They circle together and share each other's ear. One could say they are "as thick as thieves":

A brief explanation of the Three Hares symbol

The psychology fascinates me. You found someone inspiring because they’d misrepresented themselves and when someone exposes the lies, you fume at the messenger, rather than acknowledging you were taken in and, further, continue to defend the scam artist against ‘haters’.

I think that's (some) human nature though. It's the not liking to admit they made a mistake so they find every way of excusing it under the sun.

I have a relative like that. They drop a plate and it smashes and the rest of the day is taken up with excuses why it wasn't their fault... the plate was slippery, the sun was hot, someone said something a minute before which distracted them, the food was too hot/cold/steamed at the wrong time, they nearly tripped over their shoelace that no one told them was undone, no one said the plate was blue...
It's silly because if they'd just gone "oops" and cleared it up, everyone would have forgotten about it 2 minutes later, and no one blamed them anyway. By the time you've cleared it up (because they're too busy telling you why it isn't their fault to help) and been subjected to excuses for a couple of hours you want to rub it in that it was their fault because they were trying to juggle with an orange with their other hand while they carried the plate which was the entire reason why they dropped it.

Had written this the other day in response to the link to an article about the psychology of SW's namechange, but for some reason never posted it, so posting it now, slightly late to the party:
----

Yes, I think the blogger who remembers meeting them in Polruan knew them as Tim and Sally. I can't remember with others -- which names did the Porters or Bill Cole know them by?

I think the namechange isn't about splitting off parts of the self, I think it's about presenting a palatable false self for public approval and/or to sell books via an image.

Like JT Leroy (reclusive American author who published a series of successful books about 'his' abusive past, underage sex work, drug addiction etc, but who turned out to be the entirely fictional invention of a woman who had a long history of using other pseudonyms for different types of writing, and of calling helplines posing as a young man, and who employed her SIL in a wig and sunglasses to 'act' as JT in public).

In JT Leroy's case, his invented life was much more dramatic than Laura Albert's, and gave an air of authenticity to his 'underworld' stories.

LA was sued for using the pseudonym to sign a film deal in the end, actually.

In SW's case, 'Raynor Winn' represents the special individual SW feels she is, and which was never (she felt) reflected in her deeply ordinary, suburban name and the deeply ordinary smalltown life she was destined for. She was always better than that. Raynor (ie not Sally) has this cool fake past, losing everything and responding with bravery and stoicism, and who just stumbled into fame. And likewise, Moth wasn't workshy townie Tim Walker, happy to live off his wife's stolen money, he was a child of nature and committed ecowarrior with lots of cool past exploits overseas in sport and shepherding, before being tragically struck down by disease.

Maybe the most interesting difference between Raynor/Moth and Sally/Tim is that fictional Raynor/Moth are completely unmaterialistic semi-recluses, whereas Sally/Tim's single most consistent joint personality trait is materialism and money-hunger. They like designer clothes, flash cars, and expensive homes. And above all they are workshy.

I do get that, but I think it's a step further to seek out the social media profile of the 'exposed' person whose false persona you had found inspirational, and keep bobbing up on it posting platitudinous stuff about how inspiring the person is and encouraging them to keep scamming the general public, and pouncing on anyone who points out, civilly, that not only is the person not inspirational, as what they were supposed to have done is a fiction, but they are actively criminal.

I mean, it seems a step beyond sticking your fingers in your ears and saying you're not listening!

I haven't read any of the frothing support for Sal's IG posts by some of her followers but I suspect that there may be some readers who were indeed inspired by the message of hope in TSP and that it helped them through a difficult period in their lives. So even if it has now been revealed by OC that TSP was based on a litany of lies and falsehoods and the hope it provided for genuine sufferers with CBD was illusory, for others who may have been suffering from depression or going through a rough patch, getting up and going for a long walk may have helped them. And for that, they are thankful for Raynor Winn for having provided the inspiration, even if the supposedly 100% true story was based on a pack of lies.

It of course ignores the enormous collateral damage that Raymoth caused to so many people they encountered on their own journey to becoming celebrity multimillionaires as well as the destruction of trust in "true" memoirs they created amongst many readers.

I think we have to be careful ascribing various motives to Sal and Tim for their name changing. It could be that the publishers just thought that Sally Walker wasn't a 'marketable' name and asked her to pick a pen name for publication purposes.

When I changed genre in my writing, my publishers asked me if I wanted to use another name, just to differentiate between my women's fiction and my paranormal. In the end I didn't, but picking a pen name is a lot harder than you think!

But doesn't 'Raynor Winn' predate SW's book contract for TSP? She signed her email to The Big Issue in early May 2017 as 'Raynor Winn' and by her account, at that point she didn't even have an agent yet, far less a publishing deal. Her Instagram account (which dates, I seem to remember from 2016) has apparently always been under that name, too, as I think it shows in the account's profile whether the account has previously been called something else. It won't give you dates etc, but it will say 'This account's name has been changed 3 times' or whatever.

October 2016 was when she joined Instagram as 'Raynor Winn'.

An opportunity for Raynor and Moth to return to their dream home!

Interesting that when Sal worked for the charity,Emmaus Cornwall, in 2020/2021 she referred to her self as Raynor Winn.

Oh yes of course, that's true!

But maybe it wasn't the publishers asking her to change her name for publication, maybe Sal just thought Sally Walker wasn't particularly eye catching. Her change of name did postdate her writing though didn't it? So maybe it was the same thing, just not prompted by a publisher. After all 'Sally Walker' is a bit humdrum - I guess we just have to be happy she didn't call herself 'Galadriel Eastwind'...

Both Raynor Winn and Jen Christie's IG accounts were set up within 24 hours of each other in October 2016. This, as far as I am aware, is the first appearance of Raynor Winn. It does make you wonder if this was just a coincidence or if the conception of LSB/TSP and its marketing (via the BI) was done in conjunction with her agent.

Did Sal indeed finish a first m/s of LSB in July 2016, present it to Moth on his birthday in July and then, at the behest of her daughter, send it off to a few agents?

This is what I'm getting at. The name and the book came together, but she didn't write it as Raynor Winn. That was the name she took purely for book purposes.

Of course, she might well have done it just to avoid anyone knowing it was her, cos she's a grifter.

Sally's niece tells us that they were lying low. We know they were avoiding creditors. They didn't change their names legally so those who had to know, knew their real names. It does mean that in public there was a need for the husband to have two different names, as well, as in the London Marathon. She should have been Sally Walker on Companies House.

I think that is why we didn't have a set of sartorially elegant graduation photos - he was Tim Walker on his degree course so that would have blown their cover.

Well, it would make a far more realistic/normal publication timeline if she signed with an agent in late summer or early autumn of 2016, did extensive reworking of whatever MS she had at that point with her agent for many months before pitching the article to to The Big Issue in July 2017 (having decided, with her agent, that ‘homelessness’ was the angle they were going to push when marketing TSP) while Jennifer Christie is already pitching to editors. If it had already been extensively revised at the agent stage before it got to her PRH editor, it would allow everyone involved to legitimately say it needed v little editing, and mean it could appear in March 2018. Because otherwise SW goes from being without an agent in July 2017 to getting an agent, getting a publishing contract and having her debut appear in March 2018, which is unconscionably short.

Listening to the radio this morning, there were various people recounting their lives. I found myself thinking that, for all I know, what they were saying was simply made up, and that I can't rely on the broadcaster/publisher to care or to do anything to maintain standards; and so I switched it off.

Penguin has destroyed my trust in non-fiction on the radio as well as in print. Remarkable and depressing.

That's very sad, @Peladon . Here's a true story from my life, yes, honestly! Aged about 8, one fine day in summer I walked to the junior school in Minehead as usual. But as I got closer it was clear from the silence that it was closed (? half term, probably). The iron gates to the playground were, however, unlocked and I caught sight of another boy who had obviously made the same mistake. He had a bundle of "Beano" comics with him, so we sat on the tarmac with our backs against the wall and had a good read. But after a while boredom set in so we stood up ready to go home. Now my fellow pupil must have been a good boy-scout because not only had he brought the comics but his trouser pockets were full of junk - bits of string, chewing gum and a box of matches. We scrunched up one of the comics, stuffed the pages up the nearby cast-iron drainpipe, and applied a match. In seconds there was a roaring fire in the drainpipe and black smoke billowing out of the pipe, at gutter level.
The two of us had by then retired to a safe distance to observe the spectacle. Mrs Gribble the school caretaker (who lived in the cottage opposite the school) also appeared at her front door, by which time we thought it prudent to hurry down the hill to the town centre, out of harms way!

Fortunately no serious damage to school property ensued - the building complete with cast-iron drainpipe(s) stands today - it's a listed building I believe.
As no investigation was carried out we didn't have to own up nor did I ever confess to mum or dad.
A true and totally unembellised story - the caretaker's surname was "Gribble" and my companion did carry matches, I made up the string/chewing gum pocket contents as memory fades over time! The year by the way would have been around 1950.

@UpfromSomerset : Thank you for sharing that - really enjoyed it! 😁