Coastal charity may cut ties with Salt Path author

Telegraph

4 days ago

A charity that champions the 630-mile coastal trail at the heart of The Salt Path book may cut ties with its author following concerns about its accuracy.
Raynor Winn, the best-selling author, has served as an ambassador for the South West Coast Path Association (SWCPA) since 2020, but the group is now understood to reviewing its ambassadors programme amid controversy about her memoir.
In the book, Winn recounts walking the South West Coast Path with her terminally ill husband, Moth, after the pair lost their home.
The 'unflinchingly honest' account was adapted into a film starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs, but its accuracy has been thrown into doubt by allegations that Winn lost the property after stealing money from her employer.
The SWCPA enlisted Winn to help promote the coastal walk, which stretches around the South West peninsula from Minehead in Somerset to Poole in Dorset.
Several pages on the charity's website featuring Winn have been deleted, including a lengthy interview with the author in which she said: 'I was incredibly honoured when the South West Coast Path Association approached me to be an ambassador because, as I've said, that path has meant so much to me.
'It's been such a pivotal, changing point in my life, and I carry something of that coast path with me wherever I go.'
A 'Meet Our Ambassadors' page has also been deleted.
Winn has been contacted for comment.
Author 'deeply regrets mistakes'
The SWCPA's review comes following allegations that Winn lost her home after taking out a sizeable loan that she was unable to repay. She borrowed the money to settle and avoid criminal charges after stealing money from her employer, it has been alleged.
The claim is in contrast to the account given in The Salt Path, published by Penguin, which attributes the loss of the property to a poor investment in a friend's business.
Winn responded to the allegations, first made in The Observer newspaper, by stating that she 'deeply regrets' certain 'mistakes' in her past.
The Salt Path states that the couple travelled the South West Coast Path while homeless and that they lived in a tent with meagre supplies.
However, it has emerged that the pair owned a house in France at the time of their 2012 trek. Winn has since claimed it was too dilapidated to live in.
The Observer investigation also raised doubts about Moth Winn's diagnosis for corticobasal degeneration (CBD).
The degenerative disease causes difficulties with movement, speech, memory and swallowing, with symptoms worsening as it progresses.
Those with CBD have a typical life expectancy of six to eight years following the first onset of symptoms. Moth, who was said to have been diagnosed in 2013, managed to go on lengthy hikes recounted in Winn's books.
She responded to questions over her husband's diagnosis by saying that they were 'heartbreaking'.
Winn also shared sharing medical documents which she claimed proved that Moth had been diagnosed and treated for the disease.
PSPA, a leading CBD charity, cut ties with the Winns following The Observer's investigation. The couple had previously worked with the charity to help it raise funds.