What is The Salt Path and the story surrounding it?
It was later turned into a film starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs.
Winn has recently described enduring some of the 'hardest days' of her life, after claims that parts of it were fabricated.
The Salt Path is a 2018 memoir, nature, and travel book written by Raynor Winn.
It tells the story of the long-distance walk she and her husband Moth took along the South West Coast Path, in South West England.
The pair had lost their home and Moth was reportedly diagnosed with fatal corticobasal degeneration (CBD).
Throughout the story, the couple is almost penniless, receiving little money in tax credits each week and camping each night.
The story ends on the last day, after walking the whole path in two sections, in two successive summers, when the couple meets a stranger who offers them the tenancy of a flat.
In 2023, a film adaptation began production, with Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs in the lead roles.
It premiered at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival and was released in the UK in May 2025.
An investigation by The Observer newspaper, however, has reported that Winn may have misrepresented the events that led to the couple losing their home and that experts had doubts over Moth having corticobasal degeneration (CBD).
The publisher, which also said the couple's legal names are Sally and Timothy Walker, said the couple lost their home after an accusation that Winn had stolen thousands of pounds from her employer, rather than a bad business investment.
It also said that it had spoken to medical experts who were sceptical about Moth having CBD, given his lack of acute symptoms and his apparent ability to reverse them.
Gillian Anderson attends the CineMerit Award for #GillianAnderson and the Premiere of the movie "The Salt Path" during the 2025 Munich Film Festival at Deutsches Theater in Munich, Germany.
More #GettyVideo #MunichFilmFest 🎥 Andreas Rentz 👉 https://t.co/MQixIYLrNg pic.twitter.com/GcxiZ69tAO
Penguin, which published the book, said it 'undertook all the necessary pre-publication due diligence', including a contract with an author warranty about factual accuracy, and a legal read.
It added: 'Prior to the Observer enquiry, we had not received any concerns about the book's content.'
In a statement on her website, she hit back at the Observer's article, saying it was 'grotesquely unfair, highly misleading and seeks to systematically pick apart my life'.
She added: '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.'
A post shared by Raynor Winn (@raynor.winn)
On Wednesday (July 9), Winn also posted clinic letters on Instagram addressed to Timothy Walker, which she said showed that 'he is treated for CBD/S and has been for many years'.
She wrote: 'The last few days have been some of the hardest of my life. Heartbreaking accusations that Moth has made up his illness have been made, leaving us devastated.'
In a statement on Friday (July 11), Penguin Michael Joseph, which published The Salt Path in 2018, said Winn's next book will now be delayed.
On Winter Hill was due to be published in October, but has been pushed back following the "intrusive conjecture".
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A spokeswoman for the publisher said: 'Given recent events, in particular intrusive conjecture around Moth's health condition, which has caused considerable distress to Raynor Winn and her family, it is our priority to support the author at this time.
'With this in mind, Penguin Michael Joseph, together with the author, has made the decision to delay the publication of On Winter Hill from this October.
'We will announce a new publication date in due course.'
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Daily Mirror
a day ago
- Daily Mirror
The Salt Path readers are fuming and demand refunds after 'true story' controversy
Bookshops offer refunds for The Salt Path, as author Raynor Winn is accused of lying about and leaving out key elements of the South West Coast Path story - and readers feel 'conned' Bookshops and online stores are offering refunds for The Salt Path, as author Raynor Winn is accused of lying about and leaving out key elements of the South West Coast Path story - and readers feel "conned." Winn has been accused of not being completely honest in her account of the memoir - which is about a huge hike around the South West Coast Path. Angry readers of The Salt Path are demanding refunds and leaving the once-loved book scathing reviews after author Raynor Winn was accused of lying. The "true story" has now been contested, although the writer maintains that it reflects her and her husband's journey "accurately". But readers are now asking for refunds as some have said they feel "conned" and "disappointed". Others have flocked to the book's Amazon page to leave negative reviews, since the accusations came to light. Moving circumstances were detailed in the book, that more than two million people have read, but now Winn is facing claims that it is not a true story - and some key elements were omitted. Readers have been leaving one-star reviews on the Amazon book page for the book, as well as requesting refunds en masse. It all comes after an investigation into the "true tale" by The Observer newspaper. However, Winn continues to defend the book and the account of the real-life experience herself and her husband endured. The newspaper investigation looked deep into the backgrounds of The Salt Path's protagonists, Winn and her husband, Moth. Their real names are Sally and Tim Walker - and though the book detailed them being forced out of their home in Wales, this the investigation argued was not true. Instead, the exposé alleged that when an investment in a childhood friend's business went wrong, their property was repossessed. Further, Winn is accused of stealing tens of thousands of pounds from a former employer, for which, the Observer writers, that she was later arrested. Allegedly, the couple then failed to repay a loan taken out with a relative to repay this "stolen money" which had been agreed on the terms that police involvement would be avoided. However, after failing to repay, it's claimed that this is the reason the couple lost their home. For more stories like this subscribe to our weekly newsletter, The Weekly Gulp, for a curated roundup of trending stories, poignant interviews, and viral lifestyle picks from The Mirror's Audience U35 team delivered straight to your inbox. Despite the investigation's claims the couple have defended the memoir's contents. Raynor told The Mirror: "We are taking legal advice and won't be making any further comment at this time. 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.' Readers have been left fuming, with Amazon reviews of the book demanding refunds. One reviewer said they felt "completely conned" and another wrote they "didn't want to read it anymore". Others mentioned the investigation into the author's The Salt Path had left them really "disappointed". Questions over Moth's rare neurological condition, corticobasal degeneration have also been raised - as life expectancy after diagnosis is up to eight years, the NHS reports. However, Moth has been living for 18 years since he was told he has the disease - which is similar to Parkinson's - yet he has no visible symptoms. The Observer's investigation contacted neurologists who specialise in corticobasal degeneration - and one told the newspaper that his illness "does not pass the sniff test" in their opinion. But the couple continue to defend the book - which has also been made into a major film - and the story behind it. Help us improve our content by completing the survey below. We'd love to hear from you!
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Daily Mail
2 days ago
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EXCLUSIVE Revealed: The rural French property owned by controversial Salt Path couple 'Raynor Winn' and her husband 'Moth'
They famously told the world they were homeless, yet this is the rural French property owned by controversial Salt Path couple 'Raynor Winn' and her husband 'Moth', MailOnline can reveal. The couple – whose real names have now been revealed as Tim and Sally Walker – bought a ramshackle stone farmhouse near Bordeaux in 2007, with the intention of refurbishing it, along with its next-door neighbour, a pigeon tower already owned by Tim's younger brother Martyn. But these days both properties are deserted, overgrown and occupied only by those pigeons, in the tiny hamlet of Le Village du Dropt, surrounded by maize fields and vineyards in the lush valley of the Garonne river. Meanwhile, Sally Walker, 62, is furiously defending herself and her husband against a catalogue of charges of misleading the millions of fans who bought her soul-searching blockbuster, The Salt Path, which in turn spawned two sequels and this Summer's hit movie starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs. 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'It was very sad that they only came back once and camped in the ground,' recalled Mme Duparant, speaking in the grounds of her rural house above the din of her geese, chickens and a brace of turkeys. 'Both the pigeon tower and the house next door are potentially beautiful buildings and have stood for centuries, and it would have been lovely to see them restored to their former glory,' she added. 'But Sally and Tim didn't seem to have the same enthusiasm as Martyn and Carole, and as the two properties are side by side, it's not worth improving one if the other is still a wreck.' Mme Duparant said she was 'shocked' to hear the allegations against Sally Walker and had never read the book nor seen the film. 'I had no idea they were so famous,' she told MailOnline. 'I cannot believe what they are being accused of, it all seems so unlikely.' Dropt's only previous brush with fame was because it was also the home of the late esteemed French novelist Marguerite Duras. Her erotic novel of forbidden love in 1920s Saigon, L'Amant (The Lover) was turned into a major film of the same name and caused a scandal in Britain and elsewhere when it was released in 1992 because of its unusually graphic portrayal of sexual violence. The house which Sally and Tim bought for a few thousand Euros in 2007, has long been uninhabited, but would certainly have given them enough land to pitch a tent when they lost their home to the bailiffs in 2013 and began their epic 630-mile walk around the South West Coast Path, nicknamed the Salt Path. Now, fighting our way past the 6ft high thorns, weeds and ivy surrounding the French property, it's clear that the robust stonework dating back hundreds of years, looks sturdy enough, but the same cannot be said of the oak beams, rotting because of the completely absent roof. The house which Sally and Tim bought for a few thousand Euros in 2007, has long been uninhabited, but would certainly have given them enough land to pitch a tent when they lost their home to the bailiffs in 2013 At some point, someone has attempted to build an inner structure with modern bricks inside the old stone walls but they didn't get that far. A particularly precarious-looking beam appeared to be supported only by a single steel 'acro-prop' and we decided to beat a hasty retreat. The empty property now has a British next-door neighbour, chef Sean Morley, from Bristol, who grew up in both Britain and France, and is restoring his own converted barn. 'You can see the potential of both the house and the pigeon tower,' said Sean. 'These buildings probably go back to the Middle Ages in some form or other, but it needs someone to spend a proper amount of money restoring all that original brickwork and the oak beams. 'In England, someone would already have done that, but here, it's just as likely some French farmer will knock down the lot and build something in its place.' According to the Mayor of the nearby town of Pardaillan, Serge Cadiot, whose bailiwick includes Le Village Du Dropt, the local taxes on the house haven't been paid 'for years' – an accusation which Sally Walker rejected in her statement this week. But M. Cadiot was adamant that the taxes remained unpaid, though was unable to specify exactly how much was outstanding when MailOnline spoke to him at his home. 'The taxes haven't been paid for a long time, but we keep sending the letters. The place isn't worth much, but there's not much we can do if the owner lives abroad. 'We did send a letter to his brother, but that came back unopened,' he said. Shortly after the Walkers bought their property in Dropt, according to widow Ros Hemmings, whose late estate agent husband Martin employed Sally Walker at their firm in Pwllheli, north Wales, money began to go missing from the company. Bookkeeper Ms Walker was eventually accused of 'embezzling' £64,000 from the firm. Ms Hemmings said that one day in 2008 Martin looked at the company bank balance and realised that Walker had failed to deposit a large sum of cash. A loan was then allegedly taken out to avoid prosecution and when this was not paid their home in Wales was sold, it has been claimed. Tim Walker has been living with an illness for 18 years with no apparent visible symptoms that medical experts claim would require round-the-clock care within 12 years. The claims in The Observer prompted a medical charity supporting victims of the disease to cut ties with the Walkers. Earlier this week, Sally Walker issued a long defence to the accusations contained in The Observer article which they branded 'highly misleading'. She posted NHS clinic letters on Instagram addressed to Timothy Walker, which she said showed that 'he is treated for CBD/S and has been for many years'. She wrote: 'The last few days have been some of the hardest of my life. Heart breaking accusations that Moth has made up his illness have been made, leaving us devastated.' In a statement on her website, she said that the article was 'grotesquely unfair, highly misleading and seeks to systematically pick apart my life'. She added: '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.' In The Salt Path, the couple lose their house due to a bad business investment. But The Observer reported that the couple, lost their home after an accusation that Winn had stolen thousands of pounds from her employer. It also said that it had spoken to medical experts who were sceptical about Moth having CBD, given his lack of acute symptoms and his apparent ability to reverse them. Publishing house Penguin said it 'undertook all the necessary pre-publication due diligence', including a contract with an author warranty about factual accuracy, and a legal read. It added: 'Prior to the Observer enquiry, we had not received any concerns about the book's content.' A Hemmings family source this week told MailOnline that: 'He [Martin Hemmings] felt he'd been ripped off by her which he was. 'Ros is still really angry with her as she's knows how devastated Martin was by it all. 'He felt really let down by it all. It was a real messy situation.' Tim Walker's brother Martyn and his wife Carole, approached by MailOnline at their magnificent chateau not far from Dropt, declined to comment.
