Author of Bestseller ‘The Salt Path’ Faces Lying and Falsifying Accusations
Author Raynor Winn (AKA Sally Walker) is now facing the music for her 2018 book, The Salt Path. Winn and her husband, Timothy Walker (AKA Moth), decided to hike the UK’s South West Coast Path. The book was written to highlight their journey. It outlined Winn’s huge financial losses and the hardships they faced, plus it gave hope to those dealing with health issues. Timothy, or Moth, had a debilitating illness that got better after being out in nature.
The Salt Path Film
The book was highly successful, and Winn received multiple award nominations, including the Wainwright Prize. It won the RSL Christopher Bland Prize in 2019. It was so incredibly inspirational that it got picked up to be made into a film of the same name.
Rebecca Lenkiewicz adapted this to a script, which was produced by Number 9 Films. Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs were cast as Raynor and Moth Winn, respectively. The film received mixed reviews, with praise given to the beautiful cinematography, but some critics found the plot lacking.
Who is Raynor Winn?
Raynor, better known as Sally, has, at best, questionable financial dealings. At worst, she is a criminal. An Observer article by Chloe Hadjimatheou laid out the facts and history of the Winns, er, Walkers. Raynor embezzled thousands of pounds from her previous employer, then borrowed money from a distant relative, got sued, and the couple lost their house in the process.
What Does Sally Say About The Salt Path?
A lot is being exposed about the couple. Currently, Raynor, or Sally, is clapping back. She has stated that the Observer article is “grossly unfair and highly misleading,” and accused the UK publication of picking apart her life. On her website, Winn further commented:
The Salt Path is about what happened to Moth and me, after we lost our home and found ourselves homeless on the headlands of the south west… It’s not about every event or moment in our lives, but rather about a capsule of time when our lives moved from a place of complete despair to a place of hope. The journey held within those pages is one of salt and weather, of pain and possibility. And I can’t allow any more doubt to be cast on the validity of those memories, or the joy they have given so many.
Winn additionally defended her husband’s diagnosis of corticobasal degeneration (or CBD, for short). According to most neurological specialists, Moth would have never been able to sustain such a hike when suffering from CBD. Raynor states that it was “utterly vile, unfair and [a] false suggestion” that her husband‘s condition was made up. She further defended it by saying her husband suffers from a mild form of it.
What’s Next for The Salt Path?
According to Quentin Lake, an expert hiker and photographer who wrote The Perimeter: A Photographic Journey around the Coast of Britain, something felt off about the Winn’s story. Lake said that their recount of the hiking journey is not something he had experienced.
Penguin, the publisher, does not have the time or the personnel to fact-check everything. So what will become of the book, the proceeds, and the film? It has yet to be decided, but it looks as though there will be much to factor in, knowing that the majority of the story is now contrived.
A moving book about a journey through nature is always nice. However, when it claims to inspire so many others and then it’s discovered as false, it makes readers feel as though they have been cheated. Worse yet, if Raynor Winn (or Sally) is a criminal, then we have really been led down the wrong path.
