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The Independent
21 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Inspired to walk the ‘Salt Path'? These are the best bits of the 660-mile coastal route
Raynor Winn's debut novel, The Salt Path, first captured the hearts of readers when it was published back in 2018 and quickly became a Sunday Times bestseller. The memoir, which has been turned into a film now in cinemas, tells the story of everyone's worst nightmare. Not only did she and her husband, Moth, lose their home and B&B business at their Welsh farm after an investment went wrong, but they truly hit rock bottom when Moth was diagnosed with a rare neurodegenerative disease, corticobasal degeneration. Without any other options, they came up with the idea of embarking on an adventure, by walking the 630 miles of the South West Coast Path and seeing where it took them, figuratively and physically. With almost 300 miles of it in Cornwall, it begins in Minehead in Somerset, traverses along the north Devonshire and Cornish rugged coasts, and heads back along the south coast of the counties into Dorset, finishing at South Haven Point in Poole. It's a mammoth walk that initially seems almost totally unachievable for them, considering Moth's ill health, along with having such little money that they have to live off packet noodles, and wild camp. In the film, locations aren't given, and instead, geography is only marked by the number of miles walked, focusing on the idea of the gravity of the challenge, and how location doesn't matter to them. Instead, it's all about keeping moving. As one of the UK' s best coastal hiking routes, the South West Coast Path can be taken at a much slower pace, and walkers usually complete it in sections over many years. So if you're inspired to pull on your walking boots, here are some of the best sections along the famous route to stomp along, as well as places to rest your weary head, that don't include the need for a tent. 1. Clovelly to Hartland, North Devon Some of the most memorable – and instantly recognisable – scenery in the film comes from the little 14th-century village of Clovelly perched 400ft up on the north Devon coast. Clovelly isn't actually on the coast path itself, it's just off it, as one of the UK's only privately owned villages. It's been privately owned by the Hamlyn family and their descendants since Elizabethan times, which means you have to pay to enter (£9.90 for adults). The current owner is John Rous, and it's this entrance fee that's allowed it to become a maintained relic of a time gone by that's still inhabited and thriving and, most importantly for Cornwall, hasn't been taken over by holiday lets as second homes aren't allowed. The walk down to the harbour isn't the easiest, as not only is it very steep, but it's entirely cobbled too. Too steep even for cars, years ago villagers came up with the idea of using sledges to transport goods up and down the slope. Years ago, donkeys were used, but now you'll find them in the stables at the top of the village. Back on the path, this section that's part of the Hartland Heritage coast is truly spectacular with soaring ascents, making it renowned as one of the hardest parts, but the views make it well worth it. Stay at: The Collective, Woolsery In the little village of Woolfardisworthy, locally known as Woolsery, is the Collective, a complex made up of a pub, fish and chip shop, local shop, farm and accommodation. The area has been given a new lease of life thanks to Michael and Xochi Birch. Millennial readers will remember their social media platform Bebo, which they sold. They then swapped Silicon Valley for north Devon, as Michael's family had lived here for 600 years. The Farmers Arms pub has excellent food, including hogget from their own farm too. There are rooms, suites and cottages over the road. Doubles from £275 night; 2. Boscastle to Tintagel, north Cornwall Perhaps the most ethereal villages on the entire coast path are Boscastle and Tintagel, which are only about 3.5 miles apart and will likely take about five hours to walk between. The fishing village of Boscastle sits in a deep rugged valley that's incredibly dramatic and has an air of mysticism to it. Its windswept landscapes inspired poet and author Thomas Hardy, while it's also home to the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, with thousands of witchy books, spells and paraphernalia. Walking out from Boscastle's pretty harbour, pick up the coast path along the clifftops where the white watchtower is perched. Just under a mile from Tintagel, if it's a sunny day, drop down to Bossiney beach, a fabulous little sandy cove, for a swim. The section is another fairly challenging part of the path, but you'll see Tintagel Castle in the distance before descending into the village. It's regarded as the birthplace of King Arthur and is steeped in myth and legend. From the heart of the village, it's another steep walk down to the ruins of the castle (there are Land Rovers for those who prefer a quick ride) which is owned by English Heritage and costs £16.80 for adults. The reward is worth it, thanks to the views walking over the footbridge, suspended 58 metres above the sea, over to the medieval ruin. Look out below at the craggy inlets, and Merlin's Cave, a blowhole that makes a loud whooshing sound as the waves wash in as the tide comes in. On the other side, don't miss Gallos (which translates to 'power' in Cornish) the life-size bronze statue that's been inspired by King Arthur. Stay at: Kudhva Just two miles from Tintagel is Kudhva (Cornish for 'hideout'), a glamping site with futuristic-looking angular treehouse pods that sit among the treetops, with ladders up to the entrances. The whole site, which is set in a disused quarry, is about connecting with nature, from swimming in the lake to stargazing. In the film, one of North Cornwall's biggest towns, Newquay, is portrayed as a rather down-and-out place full of delinquents. It did have a reputation as the place to celebrate finishing school exams, and being full of stag and hen dos – but now this is firmly behind it. It's always had some of the UK's best beaches and has been the home of British surfing since the Sixties, hosting the championships at Watergate Bay. From Watergate Bay, walk about an hour north to the beautiful small town of Mawgan Porth. Once it was only locals who knew about this wide open beach and great waves, but now it has been found by celebrities and it's changing quickly. Or for a longer hike, head south along the coast to Perranporth, which is about 4.5 hours of walking. Cornwall's first aparthotel, SeaSpace bridges the best bits of a hotel and an apartment. It's right on the clifftops above Watergate Bay in Newquay and has one- to three-bedroom apartments. For the best views, book a room at the front of the building which looks over the sea. Families will love the Miami-inspired 19-metre pool, and you can also hire a surfboard and hit the waves that are just a hop, skip and jump away. 4. Pendeen lighthouse to St Just, West Cornwall At the southern tip of Cornwall on Land's End peninsula are some of Cornwall's best preserved tin mines. The industry was the beating heart of the county in the 18th and 19th centuries, when it was the world's biggest tin exporter, making the county extremely wealthy. Unsurprisingly, it's now designated a world heritage site. Starting from Pendeen lighthouse, heading south will take you past the Geevor tin mine museum (one of the last mines to close in 1990), the Levant mine, Crown's Engine House and Botallack mine (which features in both the 2015 Poldark series and the Rick Stein's Cornwall series), as well as the Wheal Edward Engine House. The rolling cliffs here are full of drama, and some headlands have very narrow paths, which almost feels like walking on a tightrope; they're so narrow that they likely won't be there for too much longer, so tread with care. Stay at: Gurnard's Head hotel Slightly further back up the coast is Gurnard's Head hotel, an unmissable landmark thanks to its bright gorse-yellow painted exterior that's right on the clifftop. The former coaching inn is still a traditional cosy pub (refreshingly, there are no TVs in the rooms), and it's just a short walk to the coast path. 6. Branscombe to Beer, east Devon Along this little stretch of east Devon's coastline, there are two of the county's most picturesque beaches. Starting in the twee 14th-century village of Branscombe, where the local thatched pub has taken over much of the village, it doesn't get much more bucolic than this. From the beach at Branscombe, with its dark reddish cliffs and beach huts, it's about 4.5 miles to Beer. At Beer, the pebbled beach is flanked on either side by the south coast's chalky cliffs. At the end of each day, the fishing fleet is hauled up out of the water onto the pebbles waiting to return again the following day. At the top of the beach, near the sloped entrance, and just 100 metres from the water, is a hole-in-the-wall fish market selling the day's catch. Stay at: Glebe House Slightly inland, near the village of Southleigh, is Glebe House. Run by Hugo and Olive, they're paying homage to the Italian agriturismo model of B&Bs. Plenty of the food they serve comes from their smallholding, they organise food experiences with nearby producers, and Olive's eye for colourful, vintage-inspired artsy interiors is infectious. Doubles from £159 night; 7. Kimmeridge Bay to Swanage, Dorset This final walk comes in right near the end of the South West Coast Path, which officially ends at Shell Bay on South Haven Point in Poole, just opposite Sandbanks and Brownsea Island in prime Enid Blyton territory. Part of the Jurassic Coast world heritage site, it's far quieter here than the much shorter Lulworth Cove to Durdle Door section further east. This is the longest section featured here, covering just over nine miles, from Kimmeridge Bay to Swanage. Walking along the chalk ridge, this section is one for budding archaeologists which keen fossil hunters will also love as it's an area people have lived and hunted in since the Mesolithic period, about 6,000 years ago. Views from the aptly named 'Heaven's Gate' are some of the best – inland looks to the Purbeck Hills, and over to Corfe Castle, and it offers excellent views back over the coastline. A fitting view to end on. Looking a little like The Pig hotels, The Canford is on the other side of the English Channel and is just a short ferry ride over. It has chic countryside-inspired rooms in heritage colours that sit above the pub.
BBC News
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- BBC News
The Salt Path: Melton woman who inspired film relives emotions
A woman who travelled across the South West Coastal Path with her terminally ill husband has said a film depicting their journey took her "right back" to those difficult Winn, a writer who grew up on a farm in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, said she lost her dream home in Wales in 2013 after a financial dispute just days after her husband Moth was diagnosed with Corticobasal Degeneration (CBD), a rare brain nothing to lose, the couple set off on a 630-mile trek from Somerset to Dorset, via Devon and journey across England's largest uninterrupted path has now been made into a film - The Salt Path - featuring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs. "As we were preparing to leave the house, and the bailiffs were knocking at the door, we were hiding under the stairs. We were not ready to go," Mrs Winn said."It was in those last moments that I saw a book about someone who had walked the coastal path with their dog."In that desperate time, it just seemed like the most obvious thing to do. All we wanted to do was pack our bags and take a walk." Five years on from the adventure, in 2018, Mrs Winn released her memoir entitled The Salt received nationwide acclaim, and was shortlisted for the 2018 Wainwright Prize, an award that celebrates travel-based writing."We had nowhere to go. We knew that when we stepped out of the door, we were going to be homeless."Moth's illness had no treatment, or no cure. I was drawn to following a line on the map. It gave us a purpose, and that's what it was all about." 'Huge in emotion' Just a few months after her book was published, Mrs Winn said she was approached by a producer and filming of 'The Salt Path' started in the summer of 2023."It makes no sense. I remember the day we met. There was a knock at the door, and there was Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs outside."They told me to put the kettle on. That's not what is supposed to happen to a girl from Melton Mowbray," she Winn said the film took her "straight back to those emotions that were so difficult". "The producer and director have created something that's sparse in dialogue."It's huge in emotion and it urges anyone to focus on the now. Just focus on now and all will turn out differently tomorrow," she said.
Telegraph
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
Britain's loveliest coastal path turned me into a hiker – and now is the perfect time to tackle it
We were in tatters: sunburnt, rubbed raw, bone-sore, stiffened. Thirsty too, though getting to the bar proved a Herculean labour: we had to manoeuvre our legs with our arms, then haul ourselves there, grabbing on to pub furniture, as if relearning to walk. Which, in a way, we were. This was the Cobweb Inn, Boscastle, June 2007, and the end of my and my now-husband's first day on the South West Coast Path (SWCP), our first long-distance, multi-day, world-on-our-backs hike, carrying too much stuff and too little experience. Frankly, we were shell-shocked. What was this strange, terrible, wonderful thing we'd embarked upon? After just a day, we were almost broken, totally in love, changed for ever. The SWCP, which wraps around the edgelands of Somerset, Devon Cornwall and Dorset, can do that to a person. That and more. Today, May 30, sees the release of the film The Salt Path, the big-screen adaptation of Raynor Winn's bestseller, recounting her journey on the trail with her husband, Moth. After losing their farmhouse, and discovering Moth has a terminal degenerative illness, they decide to go for a long walk. 'Excited, afraid, homeless, fat, dying, but at least if we made that first step we had somewhere to go, we had a purpose,' Winn writes. 'And we really didn't have anything better to do at half past three on a Thursday afternoon than to start a 630-mile walk.' It's a brilliantly insane decision, resulting in a tale of desperation, hope, love, resilience, social injustice and the power of nature. And it's centred on three compelling characters: Raynor and Moth – played in the film by Gillian Anderson and Jason Issacs – and the SWCP, playing itself. It's no surprise that The Salt Path was filmed at real-life locations. This National Trail is A-list. It certainly dazzled me: I grew up on the other side of the country, and had never been to Cornwall before this walk. I'd no idea British seas could be so turquoise, the foreshore so wild and varied, the cliffs so craggy, the cottages so cute, the air so laced with – what is it? A potion equal parts gulls, sea salt, surf-boof, fresh-baked pasties and bygone smugglers (the path was established in the 19th century so coastguards could patrol). I drank deep of this elixir as – after the first few days of agony and exhaustion – I eased into the trail's rhythm, discovering a strength and a freedom and a joy I didn't know how to contain. As my life was stripped back to just meals and miles, I'd never felt richer. This wasn't a holiday, it was an epiphany. Hiking has since become the thing I do. My gear, fitness and knowledge have improved; the euphoria is the same. We didn't start the SWCP at the beginning. It runs from Minehead to Poole, but we'd found a Trailblazer guide to the section between Bude and Falmouth (203 miles) and were swayed by the more manageable distance and the book's lovely hand-drawn maps. Over subsequent years, we returned three times to complete the full 630 miles. Tough, unrelenting and spectacular, the SWCP's personality changes frequently. Our first Cornish section felt mystical, infused with Arthurian legend, Poldarkian mines, bootlegging bays and fishermen's shanties. It's on this stretch that you walk through The Salt Path film locations such as foodie Padstow – where a gull brazenly swiped my husband's last mouthful of Rick Stein fish and chips – and garish Newquay, which briefly yanked us out of our serene walking world. This stretch also encompasses pretty higgledy-piggledy Port Isaac, promontory-perched Godrevy Lighthouse (which inspired Virginia Woolf), arty St Ives, sandy Sennen Cove, carbuncular Land's End, tiny Penberth Cove (we spotted basking sharks here), the tidal isle of St Michael's Mount and gorgeous Kynance Cove. Our second leg (though sequentially the trail's first) was from Minehead to Bude, encompassing one of my favourite sections: the Exmoor coast. Indeed, there are few finer ways to spend a weekend than walking the 26 miles from Porlock to Combe Martin. This is where you find the path's highest cliffs (topping out at the 318m Great Hangman), its most secretive combes and its most idyllic cream teas, at Lee Abbey Tea Cottage. The film lingers here, revealing the wide sweep of Porlock Bay, with its eerie dead trees, as well as the Valley of Rocks, a dramatic glacial groove nibbled by wild goats and running parallel to the sea. Falmouth to Exmouth – our third chunk – felt more civilised. There was still plenty of windswept up-downing, but it was more often interrupted by inconvenient estuaries (requiring detours or ferries) and seaside resorts, some charming (Polperro, Noss Mayo), some not (Par, Paignton). Reached via ferry from likeable Falmouth, the Roseland Peninsula is a real highlight here, as is secluded Polridmouth, on the Menabilly estate – the inspiration for Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca. Yachtie-posh Fowey and Salcombe are obvious superstars, but more intriguing are the deserted, cliff-clinging village of Hallsands and shingly Slapton, used for D-Day practice, including the ill-fated Exercise Tiger, during which at least 749 US servicemen died. Perhaps my favourite outing, though, was a diversion from Dartmouth, up the Dart Estuary, to Greenway, Agatha Christie's country retreat. Finally, on our fourth trip, we traced the Jurassic Coast, from Exmouth to Poole, where Dorset's rolling green innards meet millennia of gob-smacking geology: the Undercliff, where landslides have created a unique wildlife habitat, the fossil-flecked shores of Lyme Regis, 191m-high Golden Cap, the rock arch of Durdle Door, the perfect arc of Lulworth Cove. Finally, just past the naturists on Studland Bay (quite the send-off…), you hit the sign at South Haven Point marking the trail's end. I still remember how I felt, finishing the path. It was some kind of grief, a little like the Portuguese saudade: that not quite translatable feeling of loss for something that hasn't physically gone. The path would still be there, only I wouldn't be walking it. Yes, the SWCP left its mark. My circumstances, fortunately, were nothing like those of Raynor and Moth Winn, but the effect wasn't entirely dissimilar. Winn writes about encountering a woman who says she knows the couple have been walking for a while. 'It's touched you,' she explains. 'It's written all over you: you've felt the hand of nature. It won't ever leave you now; you're salted… When it's touched you, when you let it be, you're never the same again.' How to do it Macs Adventure (0141 530 7886) offers walking holidays along the whole SWCP. A seven-night, self-guided Padstow-St Ives trip costs from £959pp, including B&B accommodation and luggage transfers. The beachfront Nare (01872 501111), on the Roseland Peninsula, has doubles from £406 per night B&B. Fowey's characterful Old Quay House (0172 683 3302) has doubles from £161 per night B&B.
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Walk on the wild side: Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs on their epic hiking movie The Salt Path
'I have played a lot of powerful, well-dressed women in my career,' says Gillian Anderson. They flash before your eyes: Margaret Thatcher (The Crown), Eleanor Roosevelt (The First Lady), Emily Maitlis (the Prince Andrew/Newsnight drama Scoop) – as well as the formidable sex therapist in the Netflix hit Sex Education, a role that led to her being inundated with dildos from over-enthusiastic fans. 'These are all women in control of themselves and their environment. Any time I have an opportunity to steer against that, particularly lately, it's of interest to me.' There is steering in another direction, and then there is the screeching handbrake turn represented by her role in The Salt Path, adapted from Raynor Winn's 2018 memoir of homelessness and hope along the coastline of England's south-west. Playing Winn, Anderson is shown making a single teabag stretch for several cuppas, withdrawing the final £1.38 from her bank account, and warming her blistered feet by a pub fire. A typical day begins with her peeing in the undergrowth. It's a far cry from Agent Scully in The X-Files. Winn's response to a double catastrophe in her life in 2013 was to embark on the lengthy South West Coast Path walk with her husband, Moth. The film's opening scene shows the couple's tent being flooded during a King Lear-level storm. A flashback then reveals how they ended up in this sorry, soggy state. A bad investment left them saddled with crippling debts and the couple lost the farm in Wales where they had brought up their now-adult children. While cowering in the hallway from bailiffs, Winn took inspiration from a cherished book glimpsed among their partly packed belongings: Five Hundred Mile Walkies, in which Mark Wallington recounts the trek he and his dog took around the south-west. He must have miscalculated the journey, however. It is in fact 630 miles, including many steep ascents and descents. And as if penury and homelessness were not challenging enough, Moth had recently been diagnosed with a rare brain disease, corticobasal syndrome, and advised by doctors to rest. Stairs, he was told, would be particularly problematic. Twelve years and those 630 miles later, Moth Winn is, miraculously, still alive. He is played in the film by Jason Isaacs, who sits beside his screen wife today in a London hotel room. Their contrasting body language is instantly revealing. The 56-year-old Anderson, friendly but with a casually authoritative aura, is perched side-saddle in her chair, one leg crossed away from me, so that she seems almost to be looking back over her shoulder in my direction as she speaks. Isaacs, 61, leans forward, elbows on knees, keen to get stuck in. It is as if they are still playing their parts from The Salt Path: Raynor Winn, with her patina of reserve and caution, and Moth, eager to make sure everyone else is comfortable, a people-pleaser even when the people aren't worth pleasing, as some of those they meet on their travels manifestly are not. A passerby berates them for wild camping, beating their tent with his stick. In a scene that hasn't made it from page to screen, Winn is humiliated by a woman who spots her scrambling on the ground for dropped coins and assumes she is drunk. Despite those flashes of conflict, Winn had doubts about how her story would work on screen. 'It's about two people and a path,' she tells me from the home she and Moth now share in Cornwall. 'I couldn't grasp how that could be a film.' But Marianne Elliott, the acclaimed stage director of War Horse, Angels in America, and Company, makes her screen directing debut here and tells me she always saw The Salt Path as inherently cinematic. 'Ray and Moth hardly talk on their walk,' she says. 'They are carrying their trauma on their back, but then they slowly calm down and start to look up and engage with the majestic landscapes. And they are changed by it. It felt like nature was playing with them, like a wild beast – sometimes giving them beauty and wonder, and sometimes battering them cruelly. They were reformed by the elements, if you like.' Playwright and screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz, who adapted The Salt Path for the screen, says she saw nature as the key to unlocking the film version. 'Any reservations were about the walking,' she says. 'You know: how do we make walking dynamic for that amount of time? It felt like we needed almost to take the weather and the landscape as a character. It needed to be a film with a lot of silence. It's not some chatty, walky comedy.' Watching Isaacs trudging across English landscapes, however magnificent, feels incongruous after all those scenes of him suffering existential despair in luxurious five-star surroundings in the Thailand-set third season of The White Lotus. I assume he will be heartily sick of talking about the series by now, but it is he who brings up the similarity between the characters he plays. 'They're both men who lose everything. And they react in very different ways, which is a measure of who they are.' His character in The White Lotus was prone to suicidal ideations. So, too, was the apparently upbeat Moth. 'He laughs all the time, even when he's describing the toll his disease has taken on him. But he felt suicidal on the walk. He and Ray were crippled with shame, and the future was this abyss for them. They hid that from one another. They constantly made each other laugh. Acting is a game of pretend, and that's what they were both doing.' What were Anderson's first impressions of Raynor? 'I was surprised at how guarded she was,' she says. 'Of course, it must be strange: you've got two relatively famous actors who are going to play you showing up at your house. But it was interesting to encounter a certain steeliness. It was informative for me to see that.' 'You can be quite steely,' Isaacs says. 'You've got that in you.' 'Oh, definitely,' she agrees. 'I know that about myself.' Having been surprised when her memoir was optioned, Winn says she was even more taken aback by the casting. 'I remember thinking, 'How is that going to work? How will someone so perfect and glamorous capture me in that raw state?'' Things got even more confusing when she told Moth the news. 'He thought I meant Pamela Anderson.' During the first meeting between the four of them, the Winns explained to the actors the details of how they packed, knowing that they couldn't take more than what could be carried on their backs. 'Then they put the tent up for us right there in the living room,' Isaacs says. 'I'm not sure if I'd … ever … camped … before,' says Anderson, stringing the words out as though anticipating derision. 'You'd never pitched a tent?' asks Isaacs in mild disbelief. 'Not as far as I can remember,' she says. 'I might have pitched one for my kids in the back garden.' Isaacs says he is 'all about climbing things, jumping off things, swimming through things. Canyons and stuff. I like extreme physical experiences. Even at my advanced age, I see something and I think, 'That'd be fun to climb up. Or slide down.' I'm still a 12-year-old boy trapped in a 100-year-old body.' As a child, he went wild camping with his family in Wales. 'We'd get woken by farmers. Or livestock.' Once, they parked in heavy fog on a small hill and pitched their tent. 'You couldn't see your hand in front of you. We woke up to find we'd camped on a roundabout.' Anderson gasps and claps her hands: 'That's such a good story!' The Salt Path began life as a diary that Winn kept on the walk, and which she later wrote up as a gift for Moth – and, more urgently, as a way of preserving the experience for him as his memory began to fade. That diary spawned a Big Issue article and then a book, nominated for the Costa prize in 2018. The judges called it 'an absolutely brilliant story that needs to be told about the human capacity to endure and keep putting one foot in front of another'. The picture will doubtless reignite interest in the South West Coast Path, and attract more walkers after a recent downturn. To anyone tempted to wonder whether walking is having 'a moment', what with the film of The Salt Path following David Nicholls's novel You Are Here (about a friendship that blooms on a 200-mile coast-to-coast hike across the north of England), it is as well to remember that what the Winns did was born out desperation. They found beauty and a kind of salvation, and the walk even seemed to help Moth to defy his doctors' prognosis, but it was often a ghastly, hardscrabble journey. 'They were desperate and lonely and scared,' says Isaacs. 'They wanted to avoid towns because they got treated badly there and they had no money to buy food. They were happier by themselves away from people. They experienced both sides of human nature: tremendous compassion and generosity but also abuse and neglect. They were frightened of the police and of anyone who would come along and dehumanise them just because they were homeless. Though the book itself was a love letter to Moth, there's a marked lack of sentimentality when they speak about what happened. They got all kinds of different benefits from the walk but they still wanted a warm roof over their heads.' One thing that is impossible to capture on screen, he says, is their persistent hunger. 'It colours everything. We do our best to tell the story but that's a physical ache. They would stand at cafe windows watching people eat.' Anderson is nodding along. 'Ray talks in the book about pretending to eat, and how the fantasy of eating, the act of moving the mouth, does half the job,' she says. Winn tells me that living below the breadline has altered her for ever. 'It changes how you feel about material things,' she says. 'Having let go of everything we had, possessions don't concern me in the same way they did before. Anything that doesn't enrich your life just gets in the way. The stuff we gather can easily start to control us.' Winn says her life is much as it ever was, though Moth now tires more easily, and requires extensive physiotherapy. 'Except without the worry of paying the rent.' As the author of several bestselling books, does she allow herself the occasional luxury these days? 'I do,' she sighs. 'Sometimes it's nice to have the whole pasty instead of just half.' The Salt Path is in UK and Irish cinemas from 30 May.
Telegraph
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
The Salt Path: Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs are weighed down by their script
For most travellers, walking the 630-mile coastal path from Minehead to Poole – tracing the whole finger of the Southwest Peninsula – might be cause for a two-month hiking sabbatical. For the married couple in The Salt Path, based on a 2018 memoir by one of them, Raynor Winn, it became the solution instead to a more immediate problem: they'd lost their home. After an unwise investment in a friend's failing company, they forfeited a court case and found their farm repossessed. The health of Moth (Jason Isaacs) also declined alarmingly, and he was diagnosed with corticobasal degeneration (CBD). When he and Raynor (Gillian Anderson) decide to heave on their backpacks and set off regardless, they have hardly any cash to hand, subsisting on instant noodles, charity, and whatever else they can scrape together. This modestly scaled drama is the feature debut of the fêted West End theatre director Marianne Elliott (War Horse, Company). It makes genuinely important points about homelessness, and the middle-class horror of ever crossing that line. But the script, by Rebecca Lenkiewicz (Ida, She Said) is a surprising letdown. It strikes the ear as a Cliffs Notes version (pun intended) of Raynor and Moth's coastal trek, with too many exchanges milked for nudging significance: an argument when the couple's tent is almost washed out to sea, about whether it constitutes their new home or not, is par for the course. Humour – even of the gallows kind – is not a huge strong point, either. That said, in one genuinely funny interlude, Moth is mistaken for the well-travelled poet Simon Armitage at an ice-cream van, and the couple get invited for an excruciating moment to a spontaneous soiree at someone's home. The pin-drop silence that descends when Raynor disabuses their hosts is hilariously bleak. Isaacs, on a roll with this and The White Lotus, is never not grittily believable. Perhaps the female perspectives framing this story, from page to screen, made it inevitable that he would cede the more lingering close-ups to a luminous Anderson, who digs as deep here as she might in a Beckett play – Happy Days, perhaps, with a smattering of Godot. Raynor seems to be gazing out at her own ruin, pre-grieving her husband, and mourning past contentments, all at once. The cinematography, by French legend Hélène Louvart, straightforwardly roams these craggy headlands right alongside the Wynns. But, for all the most fascinating glints of quartz, and scars of attrition, we need only look in our leading lady's face. It turns to the sun for nourishment and balm whenever the sun is there: sunlight is free, after all.
