Latest news with #SaltPath
Spectator
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Spectator
A remarkable story: The Salt Path reviewed
The Salt Path is an adaptation of the best-selling book by Raynor Winn. It tells the true story of how she and her husband, Moth, lost their home and lost all their money. At one point they go to a bank to withdraw all their funds: £1.38. And if that wasn't bad enough he's then diagnosed with an incurable neurodegenerative disease. So what do they decide to do? They decide to embark on a 630-mile walk along the South West Coast Path. Isn't that what any of us would do, given the circumstances? It is a remarkable story and while this may well frustrate those who like a juicy plot arc – does working out if you can stretch to a bag of chips count as plot? – it stars Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs who make it rather glorious. The screenplay is by Rebecca Lenkiewicz and it's directed by the acclaimed theatre director Marianne Elliott. We begin with Rayner and Moth in lashing rain seeking to save their flimsy tent from washing away in the middle of the night and then we're flashing back to the beginning. That is when they are hiding out in their home as bailiffs thump at the door. They lose everything when an investment with a friend goes bad and a court rules they are responsible for the debt. (It never gets more specific than this. What was this investment? What were they hoping for when they put their money in? We never know.) They had been comfortably off with a small, beloved farm and holiday lets. All gone, and now here we are, in the doctor's office, as Moth is given his diagnosis (corticobasal degeneration), told that there is no treatment and that he must rest as much as possible (Ha!).
Euronews
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Euronews
How to walk the stunning filming locations of The Salt Path
The upcoming release of a long-awaited film, telling the story of a couple on a journey of discovery along England's south-east coast, is inspiring people to take to Britain's longest National Trail. The Salt Path, based on a best-selling book of the same name, explores the transformative experience of walking the South West Coast Path. This 1,014-kilometre-long trail runs along the breathtaking clifftops and beaches of Devon and Cornwall in the UK. It takes hikers to some of the south coast's wildest spots with views of rugged rock formations and sweeping stretches of sea. The film, due to be released in cinemas at the end of May, has caught the attention of critics. But it has also garnered the interest of travellers inspired by the depiction of the path's raw beauty - and the mental health benefits walking it can bring. The Salt Path is a screen adaptation of the best-selling memoir by Raynor Winn, starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs. The untamed landscapes of the South West Coast Path (SWCP) are the perfect reflection of the film's moving exploration of survival, hope, and the power of the human spirit when faced with adversity. Filming took place along several stretches of the walking route, which was designated as a National Trail in 1978. "I'm so looking forward to people seeing the film adaptation of our story,' says Winn. 'The SWCP is more than just a path, it's a transformative landscape, both challenging and healing, and available to all of us." Here's how you can undertake your own cathartic journey along the path, which passes through one national park, two UNESCO World Heritage Sites, and one UNESCO biosphere. The South West Coast Path is a freely accessible walking trail which can be hiked in its entirety or accessed from many points for shorter stretches. Named 'the world's happiest walk' in 2024, it can be tackled as a 52-day itinerary by following the Official Guide from the South West Coast Path Association, a charity dedicated to the maintenance and protection of the trail. The whole journey of walking this undulating trail is apparently the equivalent of climbing Mount Everest four times. If you are looking for a shorter jaunt, there are dozens of standout sections along the route. One highlight is the stretch between Exmouth and Poole along what is known as the Jurassic Coast. Here, you walk along over 200 million-year-old red sandstone cliffs and pass Durdle Door, a natural limestone archway that is an iconic landmark on England's south coast. Chesil Beach is another famous natural attraction just off the route. It is an impressive 27 kilometres long and is backed by the Fleet, Britain's largest tidal lagoon, which shelters and feeds myriad wildlife. For a winsome historic village, visit Clovelly in North Devon. It is known for its steep cobblestone streets (inaccessible for vehicles) and pretty harbour bobbing with fishing boats. Fowey in Cornwall is a lively little town that fills up in summer with holidaymakers and hikers. Fans of the author Daphne du Maurier will find a museum dedicated to her novels and can walk to the nearby country house of Menabilly, the inspiration for Manderley in her bestseller 'Rebecca'. For British travellers, taking a pet abroad to an EU country is now fraught with formalities, from rabies vaccinations to tapeworm treatments. These complicated procedures are a result of Brexit, which introduced several bureaucratic hurdles that previously did not exist. However, the recent negotiations for a 'Brexit reset' deal between the UK and the EU look set to simplify pet travel rules again. Here are the current regulations for bringing a pet into the EU and what is expected to change. Before Brexit, UK residents enjoyed straightforward travel with their pets involving minimal paperwork. Dogs, cats, and other furry companions were stamped in and out using a simple pet passport system. Pet travel between Great Britain and Northern Ireland was completely unrestricted in both directions. But Brexit brought in a host of new bureaucratic requirements for Brits travelling with their animals. The current requirements state that pets must be microchipped. Animals over 12 weeks old must receive a rabies vaccination, and more than three weeks must pass between the jab and travel. Each journey requires a new EU animal health certificate (AHC) confirming both microchipping and vaccination. Dogs need tapeworm treatment one to five days before entering the EU or Northern Ireland, with a health certificate issued within 10 days of entry. Vets charge approximately £200 (€236) per certificate. When entering the EU, travellers must use dedicated entry points where officials will validate and stamp the pet's documentation. When returning to the UK, the same certifications used for departure remain valid. Pet owners report that the paperwork is challenging and prone to errors that can prevent travel altogether. While the certificates remain valid for up to four months for re-entry to Britain, this exceeds the 90-day limit that applies to British citizens in the EU, so it is irrelevant for most travellers. While there are still no restrictions on taking a pet from Northern Ireland to Great Britain, the above rules apply in the opposite direction because of the 'border in the Irish Sea' that Boris Johnson's government negotiated. For direct travel to Ireland, Finland, Malta, or Norway, dogs require veterinarian-administered tapeworm treatment between 24 hours and 5 days before arrival, documented in either the health certificate or a valid pet passport. The UK government is seeking to negotiate with the EU to restore something closer to pre-Brexit ease of pet travel. This would likely involve UK pet passports regaining a similar status to EU documents. While there's a small health risk in facilitating more animal movement between countries, officials believe this is outweighed by both social benefits (allowing more people to travel with their pets) and economic advantages for the tourism industry.
ITV News
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- ITV News
What makes the South West Coast Path so special?
Wed 7 May 6pm • Ahead of new Salt Path movie, we look at the enduring appeal of the South West's coastline
The Age
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
No White Lotus luxury as Jason Isaacs and Gillian Anderson do it tough
Curiously enough, Jason Isaacs saw an unexpected overlap between Timothy Ratliff, his tormented loadsamoney crooked financier in the most recent season of The White Lotus, and the character he plays in his new film, The Salt Path. Both had suddenly lost everything. Ratliff was being pursued by the FBI for fraud and contemplating killing himself and his family rather than endure the shame of a court case. Moth Winn, hero of The Salt Path, is a decent Welsh farmer who tried to support an old mate's business and is now liable for its losses. As the film begins, he and his wife, Raynor – played by Gillian Anderson – are hiding under the stairs while the bailiffs beat on the door. They don't know what to do. 'The contrast is in who they become when they lose everything, both their status and their resources,' says Isaacs. Like Ratliff, Moth is ashamed; it was his job to provide for his family. 'But it takes nothing for Moth to be empathetic towards the community of homeless people around him because he never thought of himself as above anyone else,' Isaacs continues. 'Whereas Tim spends his entire life thinking that it's the most important thing: to maintain that distance between himself and normal human beings.' Poverty disgusts him. As the Winns discover when they become homeless, it disgusts a lot of people. The Salt Path is adapted from Raynor Winn's best-selling memoir of what she and Moth did after they came out from under the stairs. While they were there, wondering how they could just leave their lives behind, she put her hand on an unopened guide to the South West Coast Path, which runs for 630 miles (1014 kilometres) around the north and south coasts of Cornwall and Devon, with Land's End its turning point. In a single moment, they decided to walk that path. It was madness. In the same week that a county judge ruled that they had to pay their former friend's debt, Moth had been diagnosed with CBD, a neurological condition that, among other symptoms, made him so stiff that he dragged one leg. He was supposed to rest, take gentle exercise and avoid carrying a load. Instead, he set off with Raynor carrying a tent, deplorably inadequate sleeping bags and a camp stove. They had just £40 ($82) a week. Their children were at college. The couple had phones, but couldn't afford to call them. Bed and breakfasts were not an option; even cafes were largely out of bounds. They were often wet, cold and so hungry they would stand outside cafes watching other people eat, which Winn describes in her vivid book as 'virtual eating'. Just as vivid, however, are her descriptions of the surging surf, sunlight and the sight of a peregrine wheeling overhead. The experience transformed them. Winn became a nature writer. The Salt Path went on to sell 2 million copies around the world. Gillian Anderson was riveted by the audio book, read by Winn herself, when it was first released. She tried to option the film rights, but found she had been beaten to it; a year later, she was asked if she would be interested in playing Raynor. Of course, she jumped at it. Together with well-known theatre director Marianne Elliott – who was embarking, in her 50s, on her first film – she and Isaacs had Zoom calls with the real couple. 'The contrast is in who they become when they lose everything.' Jason Isaacs 'I had the gift of both the book – which is her experience - and also the gift of her having read it,' she says. Zooming felt superfluous. 'That book is really all of it. But Jason spent a lot of time talking to Moth. About all sorts of things, but very specifically his disease.' Moth was an autodidact with a huge library of books – all but one of which went to the bailiffs - and extraordinary recall for anything he had read. 'So he was a sort of walking encyclopaedia who would entertain his wife and kids by constantly knowing everything about everything,' says Isaacs. With CBD, he forgot everything, even what he was saying in the middle of a sentence. 'I admire him so much,' says Isaacs. 'The strength it takes for such a manly man, which is what he is – he's a big, strong farmer who had been very alpha, not in his attitudes but in his physical achievements – to admit to me how his wife had to do the most basic things for him, get him out of bed and dress him and move his arms and legs around – although he would turn these things into something akin to a comedy routine. I sometimes stopped and thought, 'why am I laughing as he tells me these terrible things?' Because he wanted to put me at my ease.' He did the same thing for his wife as they walked the path. He was in pain, especially at first when he could often walk only a mile in a day. 'They talked about how they laughed a lot and how that's the thing that saved them, but he also told me – for the first time in front of Ray and this is you know, years later, when I met him – that he was actually thinking all the time about stepping off the path and going down the cliff. He thought they'd all be better off without him, he'd let them all down so badly.' Not so different from Tim Ratliff, then, when it comes down to it. Before The White Lotus, Jason Isaacs was most recognised as Lucius Malfoy, Slytherin's most famous alumnus in the Harry Potter films, with a long blond wig and stylish line in velvet coats – a look he devised himself, he says. That followed his first star turn as Colonel William Tavington in The Patriot, opposite Mel Gibson, and then as Captain Hook in Peter Pan, directed by P.J. Hogan – 'your fellow Australian, a brilliant writer and director'. The film, massively hyped before release, flopped at the box office. 'That badly affected all of our careers,' he remembers. 'But it's turned out to be one of the most popular films I've ever made, with a massive following all over the world.' Millions of children, he discovered when he went to fan conventions, couldn't get enough of his villainy. Running alongside these milestones are any number of diplomats, dealers, detectives and doctors he has played in film and on television, but it is the exuberant baddies that stand out in his CV – which is funny, given how affable and entertaining he is in person. Friends interviewed for longer profiles remark on his kindness, his devotion to family and his unflagging support for the many charities he represents. 'My mum spent her whole life working for and starting various charities,' he wrote in a remarkably confessional piece for The Big Issue during lockdown. 'It was always clear to me that the purpose of life is to be of service, and when you are of service, it fills a void in you that nothing else can ever touch.' It is a word he uses again now, talking about the Winns' hope that this film will also be 'of service'; that people will see it 'and think twice when they look at people in a doorway, as we had to learn to do'. Loading Marianne Elliott saw Isaacs as Moth as soon as she met him. 'The thing about Moth, the real Moth, is he is just so personable you fall in love with him immediately,' she says. 'Everybody does. He's charming, he's funny, he's positive, he's got the most incredible blue eyes. He feels like a life force despite the fact he has this terminal diagnosis hanging over his head. And when I met Jason, he talked 13 to the dozen, he was very funny, he was charming, he had these bright blue eyes! You know, it wasn't rocket science.' The famously glamorous Gillian Anderson seemed more unlikely as Raynor, who frequently described how dirty, sunburnt and unkempt she was in the book; there were very few showers along the way. 'Obviously nobody's seen Gillian like this – I hadn't – but when I met her, I thought, 'you know what, she understands the story, it would really be a big stretch for her but she really wants to go on that journey'. Every time you cast someone, it's a risk. You never really know. But Gillian threw herself into it; she was an absolute dream.' Both Anderson and Isaacs helped lug cameras up and down the Cornish cliffs. With few access roads and a small crew, everyone had to chip in. A good deal of the time, says Isaacs, it was just the two of them walking up the same hill, over and over again. Anderson, an enthusiast for personal growth, has her own take on it. 'To get to a place where you let go of the resentment, that the resentment doesn't hound you, doesn't follow you to the end but that you find a way to let go of it, of anger, of fury, of guilt, of shame, into the beauty that is nature and also have any kind of sense of hope, is extraordinary. And to me, that's as much as anything what this film is about. It takes a particular type of human being to be able to get to that place. To be able to forgive yourself.' As it happens, we are discussing this in the same week that Jason Isaacs' jaunty observations about the atmosphere on The White Lotus set have gone viral. '[It was like] theatre camp, but to some extent an open prison camp,' he told The Guardian. 'You couldn't avoid one other. There are tensions and difficulties, alliances that formed and broke, romances that formed and broke, friendships that formed and broke.' Cue a frenzy of speculation about who hated whom. Isaacs snapped back that these online detectives had no clues; he just wanted to make it clear that seven months on a set in Thailand wasn't a holiday. I wonder what Isaacs seeks in a role at the age of 61. 'I get better, the more human and more dimensional the writing gets,' he says. 'But now, there's nothing I look for, just whatever's interesting to me, where it doesn't feel like I'm repeating myself, and nice people. Hopefully, talented people. I hope that it's good for the sake of the people involved.' Loading Experience has taught him that expectations are pointless. 'And also just life, having friends die and thinking 'I have today, but no more than this'. I'm lucky enough to get to do the job I do, so I remind myself when I'm on set that this is a great day.' Even if, as the man says, it isn't exactly a holiday.
Sydney Morning Herald
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
No White Lotus luxury as Jason Isaacs and Gillian Anderson do it tough
Curiously enough, Jason Isaacs saw an unexpected overlap between Timothy Ratliff, his tormented loadsamoney crooked financier in the most recent season of The White Lotus, and the character he plays in his new film, The Salt Path. Both had suddenly lost everything. Ratliff was being pursued by the FBI for fraud and contemplating killing himself and his family rather than endure the shame of a court case. Moth Winn, hero of The Salt Path, is a decent Welsh farmer who tried to support an old mate's business and is now liable for its losses. As the film begins, he and his wife, Raynor – played by Gillian Anderson – are hiding under the stairs while the bailiffs beat on the door. They don't know what to do. 'The contrast is in who they become when they lose everything, both their status and their resources,' says Isaacs. Like Ratliff, Moth is ashamed; it was his job to provide for his family. 'But it takes nothing for Moth to be empathetic towards the community of homeless people around him because he never thought of himself as above anyone else,' Isaacs continues. 'Whereas Tim spends his entire life thinking that it's the most important thing: to maintain that distance between himself and normal human beings.' Poverty disgusts him. As the Winns discover when they become homeless, it disgusts a lot of people. The Salt Path is adapted from Raynor Winn's best-selling memoir of what she and Moth did after they came out from under the stairs. While they were there, wondering how they could just leave their lives behind, she put her hand on an unopened guide to the South West Coast Path, which runs for 630 miles (1014 kilometres) around the north and south coasts of Cornwall and Devon, with Land's End its turning point. In a single moment, they decided to walk that path. It was madness. In the same week that a county judge ruled that they had to pay their former friend's debt, Moth had been diagnosed with CBD, a neurological condition that, among other symptoms, made him so stiff that he dragged one leg. He was supposed to rest, take gentle exercise and avoid carrying a load. Instead, he set off with Raynor carrying a tent, deplorably inadequate sleeping bags and a camp stove. They had just £40 ($82) a week. Their children were at college. The couple had phones, but couldn't afford to call them. Bed and breakfasts were not an option; even cafes were largely out of bounds. They were often wet, cold and so hungry they would stand outside cafes watching other people eat, which Winn describes in her vivid book as 'virtual eating'. Just as vivid, however, are her descriptions of the surging surf, sunlight and the sight of a peregrine wheeling overhead. The experience transformed them. Winn became a nature writer. The Salt Path went on to sell 2 million copies around the world. Gillian Anderson was riveted by the audio book, read by Winn herself, when it was first released. She tried to option the film rights, but found she had been beaten to it; a year later, she was asked if she would be interested in playing Raynor. Of course, she jumped at it. Together with well-known theatre director Marianne Elliott – who was embarking, in her 50s, on her first film – she and Isaacs had Zoom calls with the real couple. 'The contrast is in who they become when they lose everything.' Jason Isaacs 'I had the gift of both the book – which is her experience - and also the gift of her having read it,' she says. Zooming felt superfluous. 'That book is really all of it. But Jason spent a lot of time talking to Moth. About all sorts of things, but very specifically his disease.' Moth was an autodidact with a huge library of books – all but one of which went to the bailiffs - and extraordinary recall for anything he had read. 'So he was a sort of walking encyclopaedia who would entertain his wife and kids by constantly knowing everything about everything,' says Isaacs. With CBD, he forgot everything, even what he was saying in the middle of a sentence. 'I admire him so much,' says Isaacs. 'The strength it takes for such a manly man, which is what he is – he's a big, strong farmer who had been very alpha, not in his attitudes but in his physical achievements – to admit to me how his wife had to do the most basic things for him, get him out of bed and dress him and move his arms and legs around – although he would turn these things into something akin to a comedy routine. I sometimes stopped and thought, 'why am I laughing as he tells me these terrible things?' Because he wanted to put me at my ease.' He did the same thing for his wife as they walked the path. He was in pain, especially at first when he could often walk only a mile in a day. 'They talked about how they laughed a lot and how that's the thing that saved them, but he also told me – for the first time in front of Ray and this is you know, years later, when I met him – that he was actually thinking all the time about stepping off the path and going down the cliff. He thought they'd all be better off without him, he'd let them all down so badly.' Not so different from Tim Ratliff, then, when it comes down to it. Before The White Lotus, Jason Isaacs was most recognised as Lucius Malfoy, Slytherin's most famous alumnus in the Harry Potter films, with a long blond wig and stylish line in velvet coats – a look he devised himself, he says. That followed his first star turn as Colonel William Tavington in The Patriot, opposite Mel Gibson, and then as Captain Hook in Peter Pan, directed by P.J. Hogan – 'your fellow Australian, a brilliant writer and director'. The film, massively hyped before release, flopped at the box office. 'That badly affected all of our careers,' he remembers. 'But it's turned out to be one of the most popular films I've ever made, with a massive following all over the world.' Millions of children, he discovered when he went to fan conventions, couldn't get enough of his villainy. Running alongside these milestones are any number of diplomats, dealers, detectives and doctors he has played in film and on television, but it is the exuberant baddies that stand out in his CV – which is funny, given how affable and entertaining he is in person. Friends interviewed for longer profiles remark on his kindness, his devotion to family and his unflagging support for the many charities he represents. 'My mum spent her whole life working for and starting various charities,' he wrote in a remarkably confessional piece for The Big Issue during lockdown. 'It was always clear to me that the purpose of life is to be of service, and when you are of service, it fills a void in you that nothing else can ever touch.' It is a word he uses again now, talking about the Winns' hope that this film will also be 'of service'; that people will see it 'and think twice when they look at people in a doorway, as we had to learn to do'. Loading Marianne Elliott saw Isaacs as Moth as soon as she met him. 'The thing about Moth, the real Moth, is he is just so personable you fall in love with him immediately,' she says. 'Everybody does. He's charming, he's funny, he's positive, he's got the most incredible blue eyes. He feels like a life force despite the fact he has this terminal diagnosis hanging over his head. And when I met Jason, he talked 13 to the dozen, he was very funny, he was charming, he had these bright blue eyes! You know, it wasn't rocket science.' The famously glamorous Gillian Anderson seemed more unlikely as Raynor, who frequently described how dirty, sunburnt and unkempt she was in the book; there were very few showers along the way. 'Obviously nobody's seen Gillian like this – I hadn't – but when I met her, I thought, 'you know what, she understands the story, it would really be a big stretch for her but she really wants to go on that journey'. Every time you cast someone, it's a risk. You never really know. But Gillian threw herself into it; she was an absolute dream.' Both Anderson and Isaacs helped lug cameras up and down the Cornish cliffs. With few access roads and a small crew, everyone had to chip in. A good deal of the time, says Isaacs, it was just the two of them walking up the same hill, over and over again. Anderson, an enthusiast for personal growth, has her own take on it. 'To get to a place where you let go of the resentment, that the resentment doesn't hound you, doesn't follow you to the end but that you find a way to let go of it, of anger, of fury, of guilt, of shame, into the beauty that is nature and also have any kind of sense of hope, is extraordinary. And to me, that's as much as anything what this film is about. It takes a particular type of human being to be able to get to that place. To be able to forgive yourself.' As it happens, we are discussing this in the same week that Jason Isaacs' jaunty observations about the atmosphere on The White Lotus set have gone viral. '[It was like] theatre camp, but to some extent an open prison camp,' he told The Guardian. 'You couldn't avoid one other. There are tensions and difficulties, alliances that formed and broke, romances that formed and broke, friendships that formed and broke.' Cue a frenzy of speculation about who hated whom. Isaacs snapped back that these online detectives had no clues; he just wanted to make it clear that seven months on a set in Thailand wasn't a holiday. I wonder what Isaacs seeks in a role at the age of 61. 'I get better, the more human and more dimensional the writing gets,' he says. 'But now, there's nothing I look for, just whatever's interesting to me, where it doesn't feel like I'm repeating myself, and nice people. Hopefully, talented people. I hope that it's good for the sake of the people involved.' Loading Experience has taught him that expectations are pointless. 'And also just life, having friends die and thinking 'I have today, but no more than this'. I'm lucky enough to get to do the job I do, so I remind myself when I'm on set that this is a great day.' Even if, as the man says, it isn't exactly a holiday.
