← Foundling | Tortoise Investigates
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- [00:01]
A
Reggie, I just sold my car online. Let's go, Grandpa. Wait, you did? Yep. On Carvana. Just put in the license plate, answered a few questions, got an offer in minutes. Easier than setting up that new digital picture frame. You don't say.
- [00:15]
B
Yeah, they're even picking it up tomorrow.
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A
Talk about fast.
- [00:18]
C
Wow.
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B
Way to go.
- [00:20]
A
So, about that picture frame. Ah, forget about it. Until Carvana makes one, I'm not interested.
- [00:25]
C
Car selling made easy on Carvana. Pick up these. May apply if you're an H VAC technician and a call comes in. Grainger knows that you need a partner that helps you find the right product fast and hassle free. And you know that when the first problem of the day is a clanking blower motor, there's no need to break a sweat. With Grainger's easy to use website and product details, you're confident you'll soon have everything humming right along. Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click granger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done. This is an ad by BetterHelp.
- [01:02]
B
Did I talk too much? Can I just let it go?
- [01:11]
C
Take a breath. You're not alone. Let's talk about what's going on. Counseling helps you sort through the noise with qualified professionals, and online therapy makes it convenient. See if it's for you. Visit betterhelp.com randompodcast for 10% off your first month of online therapy and let life feel better. The observer.
- [01:51]
D
When I was a child, I thought I was going to grow up to be a writer. And I really just thought I was going to have a book with a penguin on the spot spine of the book. But I never did write. I just. Life took me off down another avenue and I never did write anything until I started to write the Salt Path.
- [02:11]
B
The Salt Path was an accidental book. It was never written with the intention of being read by anyone but Moth. This is the story Raina Wynne has told lots of times in interviews over the years. She wrote the book for her husband, whose illness she feared would eventually rob him of his memories of their walk. So a couple of years after that walk was over, she began chronicling what happened along the way.
- [02:37]
D
I started to write it just for him, just so that I could create a record of that time, so that when those memories really completely slipped away, he'd be able to read it. Just a record of that magical time we'd spent. And I printed it off on the home computer, on the printer, and I just tied it up with string and gave him it for his birthday and then my daughter read it before he did, you know, as kids do. And she said, you know, Mum, this isn't bad, you should do something with it. I said, well, what do you mean? Like, get a binder for it? No, idiot, try and get it published. But how could I, you know, I'd never written anything.
- [03:20]
B
The thing is, that's not true. Raina Wynne had written a book before this investigation started, with me trying to work out if Raina Wynne did what she claims she did in the Salt Path, the true story of her life. I've untangled contradictory timelines, public statements at odds with private ones, and followed a trail of people left bewildered and hurt by how their actions were depicted in her books. What I was left with was a grain of truth surrounded by a mound of fiction and exaggeration. But there was one mystery left for me to bottom out. In March 2012, faced with the prospect of losing their house in Wales, Tim Walker registered a new company, Ganganai Publishing. They only ever published one book, a novel by an unknown writer called Izzy Wynn Thomas, another alias of Sally Walker's. The genre was crime fiction and it was called how not to da deer dell de dir means stand your ground in Welsh. So much of 2025 saw me scouring bookshops trying to track this book down. I spent a lot of time on the hump for it in Wales where the couple used to live. So, you know, we've been looking for this book, how not to Dilder, dear.
- [04:51]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [04:53]
B
Steve Lloyd Wright owns a bookshop on the high street in Porthelli when he lived here back in the 90s and noughties. Tim Walker used to shop there.
- [05:03]
A
I just happened to be in the. In the news agent and saw the headline, you know, the truth, real true story behind the salt bath. And I was flabbergasted and I sort of stood there in the middle of the shop just reading, and it was when I saw Tim's face that I thought, good grief, this. This is somebody I knew quite well. But as for Sally, she was a bit of a mystery for me, I think. I don't believe I ever saw them together as a couple. Obviously, Sally only worked around the corner because it's only 30 yards as the clothes flies, to where she was employed by Martin Hemmings.
- [05:43]
B
Steve knows all about the Salt Path.
- [05:46]
A
Successful book, quite popular. People were asking for it, you know, it's been recommended by word of mouth, but did you read it? I. Well, I started to read it when somebody said to me of Course, there was a. There's a local connection.
- [06:01]
B
Apparently, my investigation drove a spike in book sales. People wanting to see if they could work out truth from fiction, like those who've come to the book in the last few months. I never really got to engage with the Salt path emotionally, because when I got that tip off, I read it with a critical eye. And for me, all the way through, there were so many things that just didn't add up in the story. And as I was reading it, I found myself wondering, didn't anyone at the publisher, Penguin, raise any questions? Sadly, Steve's never seen the novel. I'm looking for, How Not To Da Deer, which is a little weird, given he has a whole section in his shop set aside for local authors.
- [06:47]
A
Tim didn't come into the shop and say, hey, Steve, I've got this book I've just published. Since he did have a relationship with me, you know, why he didn't come along and say, you know, can you. Can you help us out with this? With the sales of this book, you know, there was no contact by Tim, which I thought was a little odd, I suppose, in hindsight.
- [07:17]
B
No dice. Not in Steve's shop, not anywhere. This book has proved extremely difficult to find for months. Me and other journalists I've been working with have tracked so many leads, no library has it, even in the archives. And the few people who've left reviews for it online that we were able to track down weren't able to find their copy. I was itching to get my hands on it because I wanted to know how Rainer's creative writing compares to her memoirs. Could it provide more insights into the way this author understands truth and fiction and the line that divides them? And while we're at it, where is the line between a version of our events that we've curated and one that we've imagined? I'm chloe hajima theu and from tortoise investigates and the observer, this is the walkers. The real salt path episode 7 the missing book. When I started this investigation, I'd never read the Salt Path. In all honesty, I hadn't even heard of it. But scores of people I knew loved Raina Win's books, and their reaction to my reporting has varied. Some people have messaged me, annoyed, because they couldn't see what the big deal was. It's a memoir, not a piece of news, they said. It's the world as rain or wind sees it. So of course it wouldn't be the full truth. And that was reflected in Rainer's first statement. To the observer, she said, the Salt Path lays bare the physical and spiritual journey. Moth and I shared an experience that transformed us completely and altered the course of our lives. This is the true story of our journey. Not the truth, but the true story.
- [09:30]
D
I remember it was in the summer, and I was on holiday with my family in Massachusetts, and for a day or so, I didn't really see them very much because I was very, very gripped by what you'd written and very interested and also very, very dismayed and very upset because I care deeply about memoir. My name is Clover Stroud, and I was a journalist for the beginning of my career. And then my first book was a memoir called the W, which came out at approximately the same time as the Salt Path.
- [10:08]
B
Since then, Clover's published another three memoirs, and she's in the process of writing a fifth. She's in a WhatsApp group with other memoirists. And when my story broke about how the Salt Path was full of inaccuracies, cover up and deception, that WhatsApp group lit up as they all started furiously sending each other messages.
- [10:28]
D
There has been a lot of disappointment from other memoirists and some anger and shock and disillusionment.
- [10:40]
B
I get that, because what this scandal surrounding Rainer Wynne has done is damage trust in the genre more broadly.
- [10:48]
D
It's so important as a memoirist that you have a kind of contract with the reader that you are. You know, you're taking their hand, you're leading them into the landscape of your life. So when I read your piece, I did feel upset about what the Salt Path might do to the memoir genre.
- [11:08]
B
This interested me because memoir isn't biography, and it isn't exactly a historical rendering of somebody's life. It's more nuanced than that.
- [11:18]
D
Absolutely. And obviously, I'm not putting every single thing that's happening in my life into the books. It would be impossible, and it would be very boring for the reader, and it would be very confusing, and it wouldn't create an interesting story. So there is an element, of course, where editing has to go on. And sometimes, in order to protect the anonymity of somebody else, I'll change some small details which would make them non identifiable. And the way that I will remember an event and you will remember an event will be very different. The messy kind of amorphous thing called life into 80,000 words is an artificial process.
- [12:01]
B
Memoirists always manipulate story. There's a careful selection of what to include and a shaping of the narrator that the writer wants the reader to get to know, but that says Clover, requires a level of emotional honesty.
- [12:16]
D
When I'm sitting down to write memoir, I am going very deeply into my internal psychological world. And if I'm not honest about what's happening there, then I'm undermining the reader, certainly. But I'm also undermining myself as a writer and as an artist. But if you are hiding something, which suggests that there is a fundamental flaw in your character, and I would say that embezzlement, and I wouldn't have married my husband if he'd embezzled someone, you know, it's a really, really serious. It's a really serious flaw. And the Salt Path was written as a sort of consequence of those actions. The story had been presented as they were the people who'd been hard done by. And so when we find out that that might not be the case at all, it undermines every other part of the story, every other interaction that they have.
- [13:09]
B
But if an author isn't honest, how can a publisher know? How can they be expected to do what I did, to dig into someone's past and try and work out what is and isn't true in an author's story about their own lives? If someone writes a book about flying to Texas in the US and riding in rodeos and then flying to Chechnya to ride horses there, as Clover has done, it's taken on trust. No one's going to ask her for proof that she did these things or ask to look at the flight manifests. But when I found out that anyone can publish a memoir without any real questions about the story it contains, I was pretty shocked. Maybe that's because I'm in a very similar business. I take true stories, things that have really happened and stuff people have said, and I construct a narrative for the listener. But my work is checked and checked again by a whole raft of people. My producer Matt, my editor Jasper and others on the team. And then our lawyer will rake through all of it line by line. I need to be able to explain everything I'm publishing here. What were the fact checking processes for memoirs when you were at Penguin?
- [14:25]
E
There isn't really a sort of fact checking process for memoirs within publishing. Mostly they're just taken on trust.
- [14:36]
B
Amelia Fernie spent 30 years in publishing, working in publicity for Penguin. She didn't work in the division that published the Salt Path, but she's the closest I could get to someone from Penguin who'd agreed to speak to me. It's not the first time non fiction books have been found to contain fabrications in other similar cases. Publishers have apologised and even offered to issue refunds at the time of recording this, which is six months after my initial article. Penguin's website is still describing the SALT path as unflinchingly honest and true. But they have made a statement saying that no one ever raised any concerns about the book's content, and they said they believed they'd undertaken all the necessary due diligence before releasing the saltpath, including a contract with an author warranty about factual accuracy and a legal read, which is standard for most works of nonfiction. That just means the book would have been looked over by a lawyer before its publication.
- [15:42]
E
I can talk about this stuff now because I'm no longer in the industry, but I'm willing to bet you have not found many people still within the publishing industry who will say any of this, because it's very difficult for them. It's very difficult to be a lone voice saying, you know, actually, I think some of these medical claims are overblown in this manuscript by our multimillion copy selling star author. You know, that's really difficult.
- [16:12]
B
But why isn't this coming from the top, I guess, is my question, when there is such a massive scandal and it taints Penguin's reputation. You would think that these changes might.
- [16:24]
E
Be sort of mandated from the very top. I think I can only speculate about this, and obviously there is the financial imperative. Your investigation actually sent the salt path back to the top of the bestseller charts. So in terms of the publisher's bottom line, I helped. Yeah. Book publishing has a slightly genteel image, which perhaps belies the fact that it is a very cutthroat, competitive commercial industry. So there is a lot of pressure to publish a lot and fast. There's a small percentage of books which make the vast majority of money for publishing houses, you know, 20% of your output is providing you with 80% of your revenue.
- [17:27]
B
This makes sense to me. Otherwise, it's hard to explain the apparent lack of questions from anyone at Penguin, particularly about Rainer's increasingly outlandish claims about Moth reversing his terminal condition. Remember, in her third book, she says that walking 1,000 miles made Moth's disease vanish. A brain scan showed he had a normal brain.
- [17:52]
E
That's difficult to swallow if the illness has been misrepresented in a way that has offered anybody suffering from that condition false hope. When I first started in publishing for a very small publishing company 30 years ago, I do recall that whenever a book included any kind of medical information it was always read by a doctor. I think that that's something that should be standard, really, the fact that she was such a hugely important author to the publishing house. You know, there may have been an element of deference that came into that relationship where the editor perhaps felt uncomfortable challenging the author. I think that, you know, when you want to publish a book that you believe will make you money, sometimes that critical thinking gets suspended.
- [18:59]
B
So in the Salt Path, interestingly enough, it has a disclaimer at the front which has the usual copyright aspects to it, but then says this book is a work of non fiction based on the life of the author. In some limited cases, the names of people or detail of places or events has been changed to protect the privacy of others. The author has stated to the publishers that except in such respects, the contents of this book are true. Any medical information in this book is based on the author's personal experience and should not be relied on as a substitute for professional advice. The author and publishers disclaim as far as the law allows, any liability arising directly or indirectly from the use, misuse of, of any information contained in this book.
- [19:52]
E
That is a heck of a disclaimer. That's the most unusually detailed disclaimer I think I've ever come across.
- [20:02]
B
It's not a standard disclaimer, then?
- [20:04]
E
No. It certainly seems as if there's been some legal advice to include that level of detail in the disclaimer.
- [20:22]
B
Years before Penguin bought the Salt Pass, before anyone had ever heard of the author Raina Wynne, Sally Walker was enticing readers under her first literary Persona, Izzy Wynn Thomas. In those days, readers who came across her novel how not to Da Deer were encouraged to purchase it directly from the publisher's website, the publisher being the company the couple had set up themselves in Wales, Gangarnai Publishing. And on the company website, prospective readers were offered an intriguing enticement. For every copy they bought, they'd be entered into a free prize draw with a chance to win a house in Wales. And there's a picture of the house on the website. It's the same property Sally and Tim eventually lost. The prize draws. Terms and conditions say the house is being offered free of mortgage or any other legal or registered charge. In fact, at this point, the couple had a mortgage with the bank of 230,000 pounds, in addition to the loan that Sally had borrowed against the house to get herself out of criminal charges, which was by then around 150,000, so 380,000 pounds in total, according to my calculations. This scheme to Raise enough money through the book to cancel out their debts. Would only have worked if Sally and Tim were able to sell more than 60,000 copies of the book. That would have been pretty astounding for a self published novel. I haven't been able to find out how much money was raised from this enterprise, but Raina Win has since said that when they realized their scheme wouldn't work, they reimbursed people their money. Scouring libraries and shops in Wales, I had this feeling that the book might just be a few meters from where I was just sitting on a bookshelf somewhere. All books, 50p. Oh, there's quite a few in Welsh. But having spoken to a local printer, it seems likely that only around 250 copies were ever made. So it was beginning to feel like I'd never get my hands on one. Had you met Sally Walker and Tim Walker before?
- [22:56]
A
Only when they came to the shop.
- [22:58]
B
With.
- [23:00]
A
Copies of how not to Dull the Deer.
- [23:04]
B
Sally Walker had brought some of the copies of her novel to this Welsh language shop in Pally.
- [23:10]
A
They bought copies in themselves and then came back in a while to pick them up because they had them sold.
- [23:16]
B
Like a couple of weeks later. They hadn't sold a single copy here, but the couple hadn't left any copies behind either. Hi, James.
- [23:33]
A
Hello.
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B
Hi.
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A
How are you?
- [23:35]
B
I am good. I'm finally in Cornwall. James Urquhart is a freelance journalist who's been helping me with this investigation. He spent months scouring online sites looking for the novel, trying to trace everyone who had ever reviewed the book online, and he had no luck.
- [23:56]
A
Sorry, can I interrupt you quickly because I'm really glad you called. I've got a bit of news myself and I wanted to tell you that we found the book. No.
- [24:11]
B
You'Re kidding me. You're kidding me. You're kidding me.
- [24:13]
A
No, we found it.
- [24:15]
B
How? Where? Where was it?
- [24:18]
A
So a colleague looked into it and she contacted a Welsh Language and Heritage center in Gwynedd, but they didn't have a copy. But while they were on the phone, the person at the center looked online and saw a copy for sale on US Amazon. And weirdly, the seller was a company based in Reading.
- [24:45]
B
Oh my God.
- [24:47]
A
But the thing is that we bought it and it's arrived. Well, it's now on the way to you.
- [24:56]
B
Oh my God. Oh my God. That's. Have you. It's going to be so hard to concentrate and do anything else today. When I finally had the book in my hands, I was surprised at how professional it looked. It's Properly bound with a greenish marble cover. There's even a review from a fake Welsh newspaper splashed along the front. The Walkers had just made it up. I devoured the whole book within a couple of days. And then I was dying to talk about it, so I called James again. Hi, James.
- [25:29]
D
Sorry.
- [25:29]
B
How's it going?
- [25:31]
A
Yeah, bad. How are you?
- [25:33]
B
So I've finished it.
- [25:36]
A
How have you? What do you think of it?
- [25:41]
B
I think it's a memoir, in a way.
- [25:48]
A
I agree. It's kind of almost a confession.
- [25:54]
B
Yes, yes. Confession is a better term for it, I think. That's right. Or rather than confession, like a justification or an attempt at it.
- [26:07]
A
I mean, it's kind of bonkers.
- [26:10]
B
The novel tells the story of an itinerant couple, Elias and Baxter, who, with their two kids, moved to a small holding in Wales. I mean, it's obviously that house. The description of it fits perfectly. The other thing that. I thought you probably noticed this, but is a total giveaway, I think, in terms of whether or not the two main characters in the book are Rainer, Wynn and Moth, or Sally and Tim Walker. There's this bit where she describes the first time the female protagonist meets her partner, her husband. I'm just gonna read it to you. This is page 13. It's right at the beginning. She was 17 when she watched Baxter cross a crowded cafe as he dipped a Mars bar in a cup of tea. Hang on. Page 56 of the Salt Path. The first time I saw moss across.
- [27:08]
D
The sixth form college canteen, I was 18. He was wearing a white collarless shirt. As he dipped to Mars bar in a cup of tea, I was mesmerized.
- [27:20]
A
Wow. I mean, that. That's kind of conclusive that that's the same people.
- [27:26]
B
Raina Winn has this handful of stories she tells again and again, using almost identical language, and this is one of them.
- [27:35]
D
We met when we were teenagers. I can remember I was sitting in the college canteen and it was a really busy day, but as I looked up across the canteen, there was this young man in a white shirt. And just at that moment, I saw him. He dipped a Mars bar, a chocolate bar, in a cup of tea.
- [27:58]
B
In the novel, the couple have invested in their friend's company, not Cooper. Instead, in this book, he's called Jeremy Smythe, but it feels like he's based on the same person. Smythe takes up around half the novel posing as a businessman. He cons people out of money, including Baxter and Elias. Baxter's emotionally devastated by the theft. He can't cope with the fact that all their money is gone. And that it's his fault for investing it, as he did with his friend. Meanwhile, his wife, Elias, has found work with a local estate agent, property surveyor. Not Martin Hemings. In the novel, he's called George Penfold and he's a bit of a con man. So Elias hatches a plan. I found it really hard to read the chapter where she describes stealing money from her employer.
- [28:53]
A
Yeah, it just seems suddenly she's doing paperwork and then goes to London. And you're not really sure what that is going on.
- [29:03]
B
And then you realize what's happened when you get to. I'm gonna find this. Hang on, there's a chapter in between. And then it says, you know, it talks about the police breaking into the house. It's the police, Ellie. What do they want? Ellie knows. Here at last. She's been waiting. Waiting for this moment. Has she the will to go ahead? Can she hold her nerve? No choice, no way back now and then. The bit that I find really crazy is. I mean, it says, ellie knows why they're here. This is about the police. And then the police says to her, I'm DCI Lloyd of the Northern CID region. I'm here to arrest you in connection with allegations made by Mr. George Penfold, who's her employer, who is, I believe, based on Martin Hemings allegations of deception and theft. And then it says, just remember, Ellie, remember this is for him. So she is saying all the way through this chapter as she's being arrested and taken down to the police station. And afterwards she claims somehow that she's done this for her husband. This idea runs throughout the book. The main female character, Elias, is cleverer than anyone else. And her only motivation, the thing that drives her, is making things right for her husband, Baxter, who is essentially falling apart because he can't cope with the mess they've made of their finances. Elias is somehow able to prove that their friend Jeremy Smythe has been conning lots of people out of money. She runs from the police down to London and blackmails Smythe into lending her the money to pay back her employer in Wales. And even though he's being forced to give her the money, Smythe insists that the loan is made against her home, which he then repossesses. Sound familiar? During this investigation, I managed to get hold of an early manuscript of the Salt Path, back when it was still called Lightly Salted Blackberries. There aren't a huge number of differences with the published version of the Salt Path, but one striking omission is that there's a lot more detail in the original version about Cooper Rayner's editors at Penguin, or perhaps their lawyers, had stripped out a lot of information about the business deal that went wrong and her evident venom towards their old friend. There's another difference that struck me between the early manuscript and the published book. In the original version, when Rainer's sitting in that doctor's office and they get the devastating news about Moth's condition, her first thought is that it's going to be like when she watched her mother die, except Rainer's mum didn't die until two years later. Eventually, her death does feature, but in Rainer's second book, the Wild Silence, all this does suggest some kind of editing process at Penguin. One of the bits that really reminds me of the Salt Path is how this book, this novel, ends, which is essentially almost identical to the sort of Salt Path premise, which is they lose their home, but she's quite happy to give it up because she's realized that her husband is her only real home.
- [32:41]
A
Yeah, exactly. It's kind of love triumph.
- [32:46]
B
So much of the action in the novel was reminiscent of the real story I'd uncovered in Wales.
- [32:51]
A
I mean, it's interesting to think that she wrote this book pretty much when these events were happening. In terms of having the house being. Having a charge against the house and the lenders writing the money back, it seems like she's created this fictional version of how she wants the reality to be. She's the victim, not the criminal or perpetrator.
- [33:28]
B
I mean, at this point in the investigation, we're looking at her fiction book being closer to reality than her memoir.
- [33:40]
A
Yeah, and that's really weird.
- [33:47]
B
In memoir, there's a pact with the reader that you don't have with fiction. And that pact is that the narrative, the stakes, and even the internal emotional journey the narrator takes the listener on the may be filtered, but they're grounded in reality. And when facts start falling apart, we start questioning the spiritual and emotional truth of a book, too. There's no doubt that Sally Walker is an author and a creator of stories. And maybe that's her skill as a creator, not just of books, but of new Personas. Because somewhere along the line, she left behind the mess they seemed to have made of their lives in Wales. And she invented Rainer, Wynn and Moth. And then Sally Walker wrote a book for her characters, the Salt Path, not about their lives as they were, but about their lives as she wished them to be. This is Ndomic and Sue from the.
- [34:52]
A
No Free Lunch Podcast.
- [34:54]
B
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A
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- [35:46]
D
Okay, I have to tell you, I.
- [35:48]
C
Was just looking on ebay, where I.
- [35:49]
D
Go for all kinds of things I love.
- [35:51]
C
And there it was.
- [35:52]
B
That hologram trading card. One of the rarest. The last one I needed for my set.
- [35:56]
E
Shiny like the designer handbag of my dreams.
- [35:59]
B
One of a kind. Ebay had it.
- [36:01]
E
And now everyone's asking, ooh, where'd you.
- [36:04]
B
Get your windshield wipers?
- [36:05]
A
Ebay has all the parts that fit my car.
- [36:07]
B
No more annoying, just beautiful. Millions of finds, each with a story.
- [36:14]
C
EBay, things people love. Better help. Online Therapy bought this 30 second ad to remind you right now, wherever you are, to unclench your jaw, relax your shoulders, take a deep breath in and out. Feels better, right? That's 15 seconds of self care. Imagine what you could do with more. Visit betterhelp.com randompodcast for 10% off your first month of therapy. No pressure, just help. But for now, just relax.
- [37:02]
B
I have had lots of friends who are kind of confused by the revelations that I've published because they can see that Raina Wynne now is a multi millionaire. And they wonder whether she's the kind of scam artist who set out to get rich by publishing this book of lies.
- [37:23]
E
No, no, I don't think I'm. It wasn't. I'm sure it wasn't a deliberate scam because publishing a book is too hard a way to make money. And it wouldn't be the most straightforward of scams, would it? I think. Like I said, I think Raina Win is a great storyteller. And somewhere along the way, the storytelling unfortunately seems to have overtaken the truth.
- [37:54]
B
There's a story I've heard about the first time J.K. rowling's publisher took her for lunch. This is before Harry Potter had made it onto the shelves. He warned her that the thing with children's books is that you never make any money from them. These days, Rainer wins a multi millionaire having published three hit books, sold the rights to a film, offered writing courses, charged for spending speaking appearances, and toured with a folk band to name but a few of her ventures. It isn't possible to deliberately make up a best selling memoir. Sally Walker stumbled across the formula accidentally, but then she chose to write a second and third book, both based on the same deceptions. And both those books reached the top of the Sunday Times bestseller lists too. People like John Todd, the man I spoke to, who has cbd, read the Salt Path and were confused by it, mistakenly believing they may have more time than they actually do. Had I not published my investigation, John might have gone on to read the Wild Silence and then Landlines, and he might have gone on to believe that walking a thousand Miles could cure him. And where was Penguin during all this? They might be forgiven for taking the first book on Trust, but what about the second and third books, as Rainer made increasingly incredible claims? Certainly the message Rainer was receiving along with her accolades and literary awards was that truth doesn't matter all that much.
- [39:32]
E
People increasingly are not believing anything that they're told. And in fact, the spread of mis and disinformation is not necessarily about getting people to believe something that's not true. It's about causing people to lose trust in anything that they read, in any information that they encounter. And I think that people do trust books. You know, if something is printed in between bound covers, I think the general public does still trust those words. And I personally think it would be a huge shame to jeopardize that. It's a shame. It's a shame for the industry.
- [40:24]
B
Raina Winn's publisher says her story is unflinchingly honest and true. It's not. Since I started this investigation, lots of fans of the Salt Path have contacted me. Some to say the book's depiction of the English coastline filled with beauty will continue to resonate even after my revelations. For these fans, the meaning of Rainer's story is less about the details and more about the bigger message. But far more people have been in touch to tell me their hearts went out to the couple. But because they were blameless victims of fate, for them, Rainer Wynne's apparent deceptions mean the Salt Path isn't the story they thought it was.
- [41:05]
D
And that's what's really sad, I suppose, about this story is because this nice story about good people who'd had something awful done to them is just another story actually of people behaving badly. And that's what's really sad about it. Cause it sort of makes you, you know, question your faith in human beings. I think the fact that we want to believe in, we want to believe in redemption, we want to believe in a happy ending, there's nothing wrong in that. I don't think we can judge anybody for wanting the happy ending. It's just that life doesn't really work like that.
- [41:45]
B
The power of a true story story lies in the fact that it promises to tell the reader something real about what it is to be human and about what's possible. We're deep enough into the post truth world to know that if the idea of truth is missold, then the whole idea of truth takes a knock. And people don't just read and watch the salt path, they act on it. People with hopes and people with health problems. Sally Walker might have been blindsided by the fact that her inaccurate memoir became a blockbuster. But she chose to perpetuate the deception.
- [42:27]
D
To pull off a heist this big, and if it is what you think it is, it is a huge heist which has taken in millions of people and, you know, cost the amount of money that's kind of swirling around the salt path in terms of publishing is huge. And it's a big deception to pull off.
- [42:48]
B
The crazy thing is Sally and Tim Walker's true story. The story I uncovered is intriguing. It's a story she could have written about how this couple got into financial trouble. And under pressure, Sally might have ended up doing things she'd later regret. And as a result, this terrible thing happened. They lost their home and had to rely on family. Maybe taking walks during this time helped them come to terms with their past and allowed them to draw a line under all of it. Granted, it's a different story to the one in the Salt path, a much messier one. And the characters aren't as perfect. They have weaknesses and flaws, but they're human. And that's just the thing. Real life is fascinating enough that you don't need to make it up. The observer understands that Rainer Wynn accepts. She is the author of the novel how not to Dalda Deer. On her website she goes on to say, in desperation we briefly tried running a book based house raffle like others had done, but quickly realised it was a mistake as it clearly wasn't going to work. We cancelled it and refunded the few participants. As with most people's lives, there will always be someone willing to criticise you. That's part of life. However, it is a great source of sadness that Tortoise Media's observer is now seeking to drive a wedge between our family members. The family have always been able to share their concerns privately, and they still can. I did not steal from family, as others can confirm, nor have I confessed to doing so, and I did not write the letter suggesting I did. We are accused of hiding behind pseudonyms. This is blatantly untrue. Like most, we use these nicknames alongside our legal names. The legal names we use on our bank records are utility bills, etc. Our friends and neighbors use Sal and Tim interchangeably with Ray and Moth. There is nothing hiding in our names. Thanks for listening to the the Real Salt Path. It was reported by me, Chloe Hajimathea, with additional reporting by James Urquhart. The series producer was Matt Russell. Music supervision was by Carla Patella and the sound design was by Tom Burchell. The editor was Jasper Corbett.
- [45:46]
C
Betterhelp Online therapy bought this 30 second ad to remind you right now, wherever you are, to unclench your jaw, relax your shoulders, take a deep breath in and out. Feels better, right? That's 15 seconds of self care. Imagine what you could do with more visit betterhelp.com randompodcast for 10% off your first month of therapy. No pressure, just help. But for now, just relax.
- [46:29]
A
Hey Sal, Hank, what's going on? We haven't worked a case in years. I just bought my car at Carvana and it was so easy. Too easy. Think something's up? You tell me. They got thousands of options, found a great car at a great price and it got delivered the next day. It sounds like a Carvana just makes it easy to buy your car, Hank. Yeah, you're right. Case closed.
- [46:52]
C
Buy your car today on Carvana. Delivery fees may apply.
- [47:02]
B
Thanks for listening to the Walkers. We hope you enjoyed the series. You can listen to more of our investigations right here on Tortoise Investigates, as well as access to all our podcasts. Your subscription also gives you access to our premium Food and Puzzles newsletter, exclusive offers from our partner Mubi, free tickets to our events, and much, much more. Visit observer.co.uk welcome to find out more about what your subscription includes.
- [47:32]
C
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- [48:31]
B
With Verbo Care. Help is always ready before, during and after your stay. We've planned for the plot twists, so support is always available because a great trip starts with peace of mind. Hi, it's Liv Little and Miranda Sawyer, the hosts of the Observers Culture podcast. We have Notes. This week we broke down Bad Bunny's iconic performance at the super bowl and his fascinating career, and we were joined by the unbelievably hilarious Michelle Deswart as we chatted about the UK Commodore seen and how everything is changing. If this sounds like a bit of you, search for we have notes wherever you get your podcasts to listen to the latest episode.