Soon after NOON launched, we came across the book The Salt Path by Raynor Winn. We found the story of her midlife journey inspiring, which described Raynor and her husband Moth hiding from the bailiffs in a cupboard, a devastating diagnosis and the couple walking the South West Coast Path. Now new coverage by The Observer reports that the facts behind the book – billed as a memoir – may be very different, including allegations of embezzlement of around £64,000 from a former boss. A BBC article reports that Raynor has defended herself against the claims that she misled readers.
Raynor has posted a full statement refuting assertions made in the Observer article, which she says is “grotesquely unfair, highly misleading and seeks to systematically pick apart my life”. You can read the full statement on her official site, where it discusses debts, her and Moth’s names and his diagnosis including medical letters discussing his health.
What do her fans think?
Some members of the NOON community have told us how disturbing they find the news reports, both about the book and the woman they found so inspiring.
One member told us, “If the Observer is to be believed, I’m uncomfortable with her morals, particularly if she is now making good money from telling a sob story about the ‘journey back’.”
Another wrote: “If it’s true … I’m mainly surprised that they didn’t think they’d be found out. Not just the fraud/name change, but the possibility of his diagnosis being incorrect/fabricated.”
And another said: “I feel sad for all the businesses / local cinemas here in Cornwall getting behind the movie.”
However, there are others in our community who don’t feel this same sense of “betrayal”.
One member says, “I loved the book. It was so beautiful – about nature, about hardship. I’m following the story with interest but I know from my own personal life that often things aren’t as cut and dried as they might first appear – that applies both to the Observer stories and Raynor Winn and Moth’s comments. Also, writing a bestselling book seems to me a real longshot as a plan to get out of debt. (If only it were so easy!) The Salt Path has meant something to a lot of people, including me. Naturally I hope that any harms done by anyone are resolved. But the book’s meaning and value can live on, whatever happens with the current furore.”
We had planned an event with Raynor Winn in Oxford this month but have had to cancel it. We’ll be watching the story closely. Below, you can read our original article about Raynor Winn as NOON Icon, which captures the enthusiasm and interest in Raynor’s story when it first appeared.
The Salt Path, written when Raynor was 55 years old, went on to become a Sunday Times bestseller and then an international bestseller, with rights sold in 17 languages. It won the Society of Literature prize, and was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award, The Wainwright Prize and Edward Stanford Travel Writing Award. But mostly it won them their life back.
The idea for The Salt Path came out of a split-second decision she made that afternoon as they faced the reality of losing their family home of 20 years. Poking out from one of the many packing cases strewn across the floor was a travel book, written but a man who had walked the entire South Coast Path with his dog. For Raynor, it suddenly seemed the most obvious thing to do – to fill a rucksack, follow a line on a map and walk the South Coast Path.
How Raynor met Moth Winn
The daughter of a tenant farmer in Melton Mowbray, Raynor grew up in remote isolation, a self-sufficient child, more used to talking to her dog or reading books than socialising. She and Moth met when she was a teenager. One of their very first dates had been an illicit tryst in a tent up a mountain that ended in a near-death avalanche. She later said this experience bonded them together forever.
The Salt Path is a combination of memoir, travel and nature writing. It documents an emotional journey that starts with the despair and bitterness of losing their home that morphs into a tale of survival. It is also one of love and a terrified call to the universe for help.
The same week they learnt they were going to lose their home, Moth was diagnosed with an incurable neurodegenerative disease. The couple were told that there was nothing that could be done for his condition, and to go home and be careful on the stairs. Instead, they walked over 600 miles of tough terrain and with every step his balance and recall improved.
The couple’s South Coast Path journey
Raynor and Moth wild-camped along the coast path because they couldn’t afford campsites. As a result they quickly found there’s something quite magical about being that close to the elements.
They camped at dusk, often in the dark, so they rarely knew what view they would wake up to – whether it was a foggy headland listening to seals calling in the coves below, in a meadow awash with thousands of hatching ladybirds or on an overhang of earth that was about to collapse into the sea.
As they came to the end of that journey, they realised nature and the natural world had healed them. Raynor wrote The Salt Path as a gift for Moth, worried that his condition might one day rob him of the memories they had shared.
The book is also a gift for those of us fearing the worst and dreading the next step.
More books from Raynor Winn:
Raynor returned to these themes with her next book The Wild Silence, when the couple realise the comforts of having a bed to sleep in again is not the real answer. Instead, they push themselves on a trek through the southern highlands of Iceland, in midwinter and once again Moth’s strength returns. Published in September 2020, it was a Sunday Times bestseller. Her third book, Landlines, published in 2022, describes Raynor’s 1,000-mile journey with Moth along the 200-mile Cape Wrath Trail in northwest Scotland.
The Guardian called Landlines “another heartwarming odyssey, this time on one of the wildest walks in Britain” and The Telegraph described it as “an inspirational story of love and endurance; of trails offering links to ancient times. But it’s clear-eyed, too, on the future we’re shaping”.
In these dark times, we can all take strength from her remarkable journeys, and from her mantra for life: “Don’t spend your days looking back to events that can’t be changed, or forward with fear for what might come. This moment is the only one we have – make it the best.”
Raynor Winn pictures courtesy of Adrian Sherratt
