The Salt Path: A Memoir

By Raynor Winn

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA BOOK AWARD

The true story of a couple who lost everything and embarked on a transformative journey walking the South West Coast Path in England

Just days after Raynor Winn learns that Moth, her husband of thirty-two years, is terminally ill, their house and farm are taken away, along with their livelihood. With nothing left and little time, they make the brave and impulsive decision to walk the 630 miles of the sea-swept South West Coast Path, from Somerset to Dorset, through Devon and Cornwall.

Carrying only the essentials for survival on their backs, they live wild in the ancient, weathered landscape of cliffs, sea, and sky. Yet through every step, every encounter, and every test along the way, their walk becomes a remarkable and life-affirming journey. Powerfully written and unflinchingly honest, The Salt Path is ultimately a portrayal of home—how it can be lost, rebuilt, and rediscovered in the most unexpected ways.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Release date: Mar 5, 2019
• ISBN: 9780525505860

Raynor Winn

Raynor Winn is the bestselling author of The Salt Path and The Wild Silence. The Salt Path won the inaugural RSL Christopher Bland Prize and was shortlisted for the 2018 Costa Biography Award and the Wainwright Golden Beer Book Prize. The Wild Silence was shortlisted for the 2021 Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing. She is a regular long-distance walker and writes about the nature of our relationship to the land. She lives in Cornwall with her husband Moth.

Book preview

Prologue

There’s a sound to breaking waves when they’re close, a sound like nothing else. The background roar is unmistakable, overlaid by the swash of the landing wave and then the sucking noise of the backwash as it retreats. It was dark, barely a speck of light, but even without seeing it I recognized the strength of the swash and knew it must be close. I tried to be logical. We’d camped well above the high-tide line; the beach shelved away below us and beyond that was the water level: it couldn’t reach us; we were fine. I put my head back on the rolled-up sweater and thought about sleep. No, we weren’t fine, we were far from fine. The swash and suck wasn’t coming from below, it was right outside.

Scrambling through the green-black light in the tent, I tore open the flaps. Moonlight cut across the cliff tops, leaving the beach in complete darkness, but lit the waves as they broke into a mess of foam, the swash already running over the sand shelf ending only a few feet from the tent. I shook the sleeping bag next to me.

Moth, Moth, the water, it’s coming.

Throwing everything that was heavy into our rucksacks, shoving feet into boots, we pulled out the steel pegs and picked the tent up whole, still erected with our sleeping bags and clothes inside, the groundsheet sagging down to the sand. We scuttled across the beach like a giant green crab to what had the night before been a small trickle of freshwater running toward the sea, but was now a three-foot-deep channel of seawater running toward the cliff.

I can’t hold it high enough. It’s going to soak the sleeping bags.

Well, do something, or it won’t be just the slee—

We raced back to where we started from. As the backwash headed out, I could see the channel flattened to a wide stretch of water only a foot deep. We ran back down the beach, the swash landing far above the shelf and rushing over the sand toward us.

Wait for the backwash then run to the other side of the channel and up the beach.

I was in awe. This man, who only two months earlier had struggled to put on his coat without help, was standing on a beach in his underpants, holding an erected tent above his head with a rucksack on his back, saying, run.

Run, run, run!

We splashed through the water with the tent held high and climbed desperately up the beach as the swash pushed at our heels and the backwash tried to draw us out to sea. Stumbling through the soft sand, our boots brimming with saltwater, we dropped the tent down at the foot of the cliff.

You know, I don’t think these cliffs are stable. We should move farther along the beach.

What? How could he be so careful at three in the morning?

No.

We’d walked 243 miles, slept wild for thirty-six nights, eating dried rations for most of that time. The South West Coast Path guidebook stated that we would reach this point in eighteen days, and directed us toward delicious food and places to stay with soft beds and hot water. The timescale and comforts were all out of our reach, but I didn’t care. Moth ran up the beach in the moonlight in a ripped pair of underpants that he’d been wearing for five days straight, holding a fully erected tent above his head. It was a miracle. It was as good as it gets.

The light started to break over Portheras Cove as we packed our rucksacks and made tea. Another day ahead. Just another day walking. Only 387 miles to go.

PART ONE

Into the Light

Tell me about a complicated man.

Muse, tell me how he wandered and was lost . . .

Homer, The Odyssey

1. Dust of Life

I was under the stairs when I decided to walk. In that moment, I hadn’t carefully considered walking 630 miles with a rucksack on my back, I hadn’t thought about how I could afford to do it, or that I’d be wild camping for nearly one hundred nights, or what I’d do afterward. I hadn’t told my partner of thirty-two years that he was coming with me.

Only minutes earlier, hiding under the stairs had seemed a good option. The men in black began hammering on the door at 9 a.m., but we weren’t ready. We weren’t ready to let go. I needed more time: just another hour, another week, another lifetime. There would never be enough time. So we crouched together under the stairs, pressed together, whispering like scared mice, like naughty children, waiting to be found.

The bailiffs moved to the back of the house, banging on the windows, trying all the catches, looking for a way in. I could hear one of them climbing onto the garden bench, pushing at the kitchen skylight, shouting. It was then that I spotted the book in a packing box. I’d read Five Hundred Mile Walkies in my twenties, the story of a man who walked the South West Coast Path with his dog. Moth was squeezed in next to me, his head on his knees, his arms wrapped around in self-defense, and pain, and fear, and anger. Above all anger. Life had picked up every piece of ammunition possible and hurled it at him full force, in what had been three years of endless battle. He was exhausted with anger. I put my hand on his hair. I’d stroked that hair when it was long and blond, full of sea salt, heather and youth; brown and shorter, full of building plaster and the kids’ play dough; and now silver, thinner, full of the dust of our life.

I’d met this man when I was eighteen; I was now fifty. We’d rebuilt this ruined farm together, restoring every wall, every stone, growing vegetables and hens and two children, creating a barn for visitors to share our lives and pay the bills. And now, when we walked out of that door, it would all be behind us, everything behind us, over, finished, done.

We could just walk.

It was a ridiculous thing to say, but I said it anyway.

Walk?

Yeah, just walk.

Could Moth walk it? It was just a coastal path after all; it couldn’t be that hard and we could walk slowly, put one foot in front of the other and just follow the map. I desperately needed a map, something to show me the way. So why not? It couldn’t be that difficult.

The possibility of walking the whole coastline from Minehead in Somerset through north Devon, Cornwall and south Devon to Poole in Dorset seemed just about feasible. Yet, in that moment, the idea of walking over hills, beaches, rivers and moorland was as remote and unlikely to happen as us getting out from under the stairs and opening the door. Something that could be done by someone else, not us.

But we’d already rebuilt a ruin, taught ourselves plumbing, brought up two children, defended ourselves against judges and highly paid lawyers, so why not?

Because we lost. Lost the case, lost the house and lost ourselves.

I reached out my hand to lift the book from its box and looked at the cover: Five Hundred Mile Walkies. It seemed such an idyllic prospect. I didn’t realize then that the South West Coast Path was relentless, that it would mean climbing the equivalent of Mount Everest nearly four times, walking 630 miles on a path often no more than a foot wide, sleeping wild, living wild, working our way through every painful action that had brought us here, to this moment, hiding. I just knew we should walk. And now we had no choice. I’d reached out my hand toward the box and now they knew we were in the house, they’d seen me, there was no way back, we had to go. As we crawled from the darkness beneath the stairs, Moth turned back.

Together?

Always.

We stood at the front door, the bailiffs on the other side waiting to change the locks, to bar us from our old lives. We were about to leave the dimly lit, centuries-old house that had held us cocooned for twenty years. When we walked through the door, we could never ever come back.

We held hands and walked into the light.

2. Losing

Did we begin our walk that day under the stairs, or the day we got out of a friend’s van in Taunton, to be left in the rain on the side of the road with our rucksacks on the tarmac? Or had the walk been coming for years, waiting on our horizon to be unleashed on us only when there was absolutely nothing left to lose?

That day in the court building was the end of a three-year battle, but things never end the way you expect them to. When we moved to the farm in Wales, the sun was shining, the children were running around our feet and life was spreading out ahead of us. A derelict pile of stones in an isolated spot at the foot of the mountains. We put every ounce of ourselves into its restoration, working on it through every spare moment while the children grew around us. It was our home, our business, our sanctuary, so I didn’t expect it to end in a dingy gray courtroom next to an amusement arcade. I didn’t expect it to end while I stood in front of a judge and told him he’d got it wrong. I didn’t expect to be wearing the leather jacket the kids had bought me for my fiftieth birthday. I didn’t expect it to end.

Sitting in the courtroom, I watched as Moth picked at a white fleck on the black table in front of him. I knew what he was thinking: how had it come to this? He’d been close friends with the man who was making the financial claim against us. They’d grown up together, part of a group of friends; riding their trikes, playing football, sharing teenage years. How had it come to this? They’d stayed close even when others had fallen away. As they grew into adults and their lives took them in different directions, Cooper moved into financial circles that few of us understood. But Moth kept in touch regardless, remaining friends. Trusting enough that when an opportunity arose to make an investment in one of his companies, we took it, putting in a substantial sum. The company with which the investment was made eventually failed, leaving a number of unpaid debts. The suggestion that we owed money had crept in insidiously. At first we ignored it, but over time Cooper became insistent that, owing to the structure of the agreement, we were liable to make payment toward those debts. Initially, Moth was more devastated by the breakdown in a friendship than by the financial claim, and the dispute rumbled between them for years. We were convinced that we had no liability for the debts as it was not specifically indicated in the wording, and Moth firmly believed that they would eventually work it out between themselves. Until the day when a court summons for payment arrived in the post.

Our savings quickly ran out, eaten up by solicitors’ fees. From then on we became litigants in person, just a number among the unrepresented masses, something the government had created in their thousands when they announced the recent legal aid reforms, leaving us with no right to free representation as our case was classed as too complex to qualify for legal aid.

The only tactic we were able to employ was to stall, and stall and stall again, playing for time, while all the time in the background contacting lawyers and accountants, trying to find some written evidence that would convince the judge of the truth: that our interpretation of the original agreement was correct, and we had no liability for the debts. Without a lawyer on our side we were constantly outmaneuvered and a charge was registered against the farm as security for payment of Cooper’s claim. We held our breath, and then it came: a claim for possession of our home, of the house and the land, of every stone we had carefully placed, the tree where the children played, the hole in the wall where the blue tits nested, the loose piece of lead by the chimney where the bats lived. A claim to take it all. We continued to stall, making applications, requesting adjournments, until we finally thought we had it, the shining white light of a piece of paper that proved that Cooper had no right to make the claim, as we didn’t owe anything. After three years and ten court appearances, we had the evidence that could save our home. We’d sent copies to the judge and the claimant’s lawyer. We were ready. I wore my leather jacket, I was so kick-ass confident.

The judge shuffled his papers as if we weren’t there. I glanced at Moth, needing some flicker of reassurance, but he stared straight ahead. The last few years had taken their toll; his thick hair was thinning and white and his skin had taken on a waxy, ashen appearance. It was as if a hole had been cut through him; a trusting, honest, generous man, this betrayal by such a close friend had shaken him to the core. A constant pain in his shoulder and arm ate at his strength and distracted his thoughts. We just needed this to be over, to get on with normal life, and then I felt sure he’d get better. But our life would never be that kind of normal again.

I stood up, my legs loose, as if they were underwater. I held the piece of paper like an anchor in my hand. I could hear seagulls squabbling outside with agitated distracting calls.

Good morning, sir. I hope you received the new evidence which was supplied to you on Monday.

I have.

If I can refer you to that evidence—

Cooper’s lawyer rose to his feet, straightening his tie as he always did when he was about to address the judge. Confident. In control. Everything that we weren’t. I was desperate for a lawyer, begging for one.

Sir, this information which you and I have both received is new evidence.

The judge looked at me accusingly.

Is this new evidence?

Well, yes, we only received it four days ago.

New evidence cannot be proffered at this late stage. I cannot accept it.

But it proves everything we’ve said for the last three years. It proves that we don’t owe the claimant anything. It’s the truth.

I knew what was coming. I wanted to freeze time, stop it there, never let the next words come. I wanted to take Moth’s hand, to get up and leave the courtroom, never to think of it again, to go home and light the fire, to run my hands across the stone walls as the cat curled into the warmth. To breathe again without my chest tightening, to think of home without fear of losing it.

You can’t produce evidence without the correct judicial procedure. No, I’m going to proceed to judgment. I will give possession to the claimant. You will have vacated the property in seven days’ time, by nine a.m. on that day. Right, we’ll move on to costs. Is there anything you wish to say about costs?

Yes, you’ve made a complete mistake, this is all wrong. And no, I don’t want to talk about costs, we’ve got no money anyway, you’re taking our home, our business, our income, what more do you want? I gripped the table as the floor fell away. Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.

I’m taking that into consideration and dismissing the claim for costs.

My thoughts were drifting, running for safety. As Moth moved in his chair, I could almost touch the smell of hot, dry gravel and fresh-cut boxwood as it whispered from his jacket. The kids had grazed their knees on that gravel learning to ride their bikes, and skidded on it as they drove out on their way to university. The roses were in full flower, hanging over the box hedge like cotton-wool balls; I’d be dead-heading soon.

I request the right to appeal.

No, I’m denying the right to appeal. This case has gone on for far too long; you’ve had plenty of opportunities to supply evidence.

The room was shrinking, the walls closing in. It didn’t matter that we had only just found this evidence, or that it contained the truth; it only mattered that I hadn’t submitted it in the correct way, that I hadn’t followed the correct procedure. What would I do, what would we do, what would I do with the hens, who would give the old sheep a slice of bread in the morning, how could we pack a farm in a week, how could we pay for a hire van, what about the families who had booked vacations, the cats, the kids? How could I tell the children we’d just lost their home? Our home. Lost, because I didn’t understand the procedure. I’d made a simple, basic error: I hadn’t made a request to submit further evidence. I didn’t know I needed to. I’d been so happy, so sure, I just sent it in. Wasted my perfect piece of paper, with the perfect white truth. And now we had lost it all. Penniless, homeless.

We closed the courtroom door behind us and walked down the corridor, stiff, silent. I glanced at the lawyer in the side room and kept walking, but Moth went in. No, Moth, no, Moth, don’t hit him. I could feel all the anger, all the stress of the last three years. But he held out his hand to the lawyer.

It’s all right, I know you’re only doing your job, but it was the wrong decision, you do know that, don’t you?

He took Moth’s hand and shook it.

It’s the judge’s decision, not mine.

I still didn’t cry, but a silent internal howl took hold and screwed me tight, making it hard to breathe.

---

—

I stood in the field behind the house, under the twisted ash tree, where the children built an igloo in the big snow of ’ninety-six. I broke a slice of white bread into six pieces, a ritual that had marked the start of the day for the last nineteen years. The old ewe snuffled at my hand and her soft lips took the bread: nineteen years old, no teeth, but still a great appetite. The children called her Smotyn, Welsh for spotty. Now she was a grumpy old ewe, with a scruffy black and white fleece and two wonky horns. Well, one now—she’d knocked the other off in her desperation to get into a feed bucket a few years before. Tom had kept the horn; it was in the treasure box he took with him when he left for university, along with his fossils and Pokémon cards. When Rowan was three, I’d taken her on a forty-mile road trip in our tiny van. We bought three scatty, spotty little lambs from a farm on the side of a hill overlooking the sea. She howled with annoyance when I wouldn’t let her sit with them, so I relented and drove home with all four of them together on the straw in the back of the van. They’d been part of our lives ever since, part of our family. They’d had many lambs over the years, but now Smotyn was the only one left; her sisters had died and I’d sold all the rest to another breeder the year before, when the court case had reached a point where we thought it couldn’t go any further and we were about to lose. I hadn’t been able to let Smotyn go: at her age no one else would keep her; the average lifespan for a sheep is six to seven years before they’re sent to make dog food or meatballs. The day after the court hearing I’d taken the hens to a friend, but there was no room for Smotyn. She wandered away down the field, clouds of dandelion seeds engulfing her, to below the beech trees where the grass was always dry. We both knew that field as if it were an extension of ourselves. How would either of us live without it?

We’d both be homeless in five days; then we’d know.

---

—

What I didn’t know, what I couldn’t know, was that it wouldn’t take five days for my life to change forever, for everything that kept me stable to turn to quicksand beneath me. It would happen the next day.

We were in a consultant’s room in a hospital in Liverpool. Finally, we would have the results of years of medical procrastination and we’d know the cause of Moth’s shoulder pain. After a life of physical work, he’d been told by one doctor: Pain is normal, you should expect to suffer when you raise your arms and stumble a bit when you walk. Others had raised questions about a slight tremor in his hand and numbness in his face. But this doctor was the top dog, head of his field, the real deal. He was going to tell us that it was ligament damage or something similar and how it could be fixed; that it had happened when Moth fell through the barn roof years ago—maybe there’d been a hairline fracture. He was certainly going to tell us how it could be put right. He would sit authoritatively behind his desk and tell us this. Without a doubt.

We’d barely spoken during the long drive to Liverpool, each of us in our own mire of shock and exhaustion. The days since the court case were a blur of packing boxes and bonfires, endless fraught phone calls and despair. The realization had dawned that we had nowhere to go. The worst thing that could possibly happen had happened. This seven-hour round trip was something we didn’t need. Every hour was precious, every hour to finish packing, every hour to still be held safe within those walls.

The endless trips to doctors’ waiting rooms had begun six years previously. A debilitating pain in his shoulder and arm, and then a tremor beginning in his hand, had led to doctors believing he had Parkinson’s disease, but when that was proved not to be the case, they felt maybe it was nerve damage. This consultant’s room was like every other: a square, white, emotionless box overlooking the parking lot. But this doctor wasn’t behind his desk; he came and sat on the corner of it next to Moth, put his hand on his arm and asked him how he was. It was wrong. Doctors don’t do that. No doctor we’d seen—and we’d seen a fair few—had ever done that.

The best thing I can do for you, Moth, is give you a diagnosis.

No, no, no, no, no. Don’t say anymore, don’t speak, something awful is going to fall out of your smug, tight lips, don’t open them, don’t speak.

I believe you have corticobasal degeneration, CBD. We can’t be absolutely certain about the diagnosis. There is no test, so we’ll only know at postmortem.

Postmortem? When do you think that will be? Moth’s hands spread wide over his thighs, holding as much of himself as he could between his broad fingers.

Well, I would normally say six to eight years from onset. But yours seems to be very slow progressing as it’s already been six years since you first presented with a problem.

That must mean you’ve got it wrong then. It’s something else. I could feel my stomach rising into my throat and the room slipping out of focus.

The doctor looked at me as if I were a child; then he carried on trying to explain a rare degenerative brain disease that would take the beautiful man I’d loved since I was a teenager and destroy his body and then his mind as he fell into confusion and dementia, and end with him unable to swallow and probably choking to death on his own saliva. And there was nothing, absolutely nothing, they could do about it. I could hardly breathe; the room was swimming. No, not Moth, don’t take him, you can’t take him, he’s everything, he’s all of it, all of me. No. I tried to keep a calm face, but inside I was screaming, panicking, like a bee against a glass pane. The real world was there but suddenly out of reach.

But you could have got it wrong.

What was he talking about? This wasn’t how we would die. It wasn’t Moth’s life; it was our life. We were one, fused, enmeshed, molecular. Not his life, not my life: our life. We had a plan for how we would die. When we were ninety-five, on top of a mountain, having watched the

Reviews for The Salt Path

[katyefk · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

It took a while for me to get into this book and then I read it in a "Skim reading" way as I wanted to find out what happened to them. Since I read the book I found that there are some issues about some of the basic beginning reasons why these folks lost all their funds/house etc. and chose to walk the path. But story still had an impact on me and I feel more compassion for homeless folks around our town.

[dele2451 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A good book for your rucksack.

[diana.hauser · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The Salt Path by Raynor Winn.
This title was published in 2018 by Penguin Random House/UK.
“Just days after Raynor Winn learned that Moth, her husband of 32 years, was terminally ill, they lost their home and livelihood. With nothing left and little time, they impulsively decided to walk the 630 mile Southwest Coast Path, from Somerset to Dorset, via Devon and Cornwall. Living wild and free, at the mercy of sea and sky, they discovered a new, liberating experience - but what would they find at journey’s end?”
I appreciated the map, as I was unfamiliar with the area, except through fiction and tv. (Doc Martin, Poldark & Daphne du Maurier come to mind)
The book took me along through a fascinating, beautiful and rugged landscape. I picked up information on Geology, sheep shearing and lambing and bottle-nosed dolphins.
I liked the title, as it represents ‘being salted’, ‘seasoned’ by the walk.
A very compelling, interesting and inspirational book. I would highly recommend it. *****

[sarahebear · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Having lost everything (financial) and then having to deal with her husbands debilitating illness. The author and her partner embark on a poorly planned walk of the Salt Path. A little bit memoir, a little bit travel guide.

[cheryl_in_cc_nv · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Wow. Um, I usually reserve my fifth star for books that I think most everyone would enjoy, that I'd recommend (at least almost) universally. So, since I know that there are ppl who are too naïve, or too cold, or whatever, to enjoy this, it's really 4.5 stars. But I'm rounding up because what Ray and Moth accomplished is amazing.

One reviewer said "heartening" and I really like that... much better than inspirational. Also funny. Also romantic, in the best ways of both senses of the word. I plan to read the sequel.

[pamelabarrett · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Raynor Wynn through some bad circumstances ended up homeless. Her husband Moth was terminally ill, and their friends and family were struggling too so they could only stay at homes short term. As their life came unglued and everything, they worked for was taken away, Raynor and Moth took all they could carry or afford and walked the Salt Path. The path is 630 miles long and is above the ocean and follows the South West Coastal Path and the English Channel. With a favorite guidebook, and the tiny bit of money they could get every few weeks for food, they pushed on. This journey is a metaphor for life that when the worst happens all you can do is put one foot in front of the other and move through it. There are lessons here, surrounded by beauty and the goodwill of some people they met along the way. There is ugliness too by some people and their preconceived judgement of homelessness. It’s not a long book only 270 pages. I couldn’t stop reading it sometimes crying, sometimes laughing always wondering where their journey would end. Hoping that Moth’s health would hold out and a miracle would arrive to give them hope. I just ordered her next book too.

[lauralkeet · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In the space of a week, Raynor Winn and her husband Moth were dealt two staggering blows. First, they lost their home in a court case concerning a business deal gone wrong. Then, just five days later, Moth was diagnosed with corticobasal degeneration, a slow-moving but incurable neurological disorder that would lead to dementia and also affect his mobility. With nowhere to live, a ruined credit history, and no job prospects, the couple decides to walk England’s 630-mile South West Coast Path, camping along the way. The route is extremely difficult, especially at the beginning, and they soon find they cannot afford even the most basic campsite, let alone decent meals.

And yet they manage, one day at a time. Surprisingly, the walk’s physical demands actually improve Moth’s condition, giving him new strength and vitality. They learn how to manage their daily needs with the very minimal government support that regularly lands in their bank account, often making difficult trade-offs. They occasionally benefit from the kindness of strangers, but more often are poorly treated by people and systems that cannot handle homelessness.

While their journey includes a lot of stress and grief, over time Raynor and Moth begin to envision a future for themselves and develop a plan, made possible by their strong commitment to one another and a fortunate chance encounter.

[mercef_9 · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

DNF. Just found the beginning too annoying. Instead of compassion for their plight, I was cranky about the decisions they chose.

[cbl_tn · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Raynor Winn and her husband Moth experienced a major financial setback that resulted in the loss of their home and livelihood. The very next day, Moth was diagnosed with a degenerative brain disease with no cure. With no home and no jobs, the couple decided to walk the South West Coast Path from Minehead to Poole, passing through Somerset, Devon, Cornwall, and Dorset. Because they have no money for hotels or campgrounds, the pair plan to wild camp along the trail. Winn’s memoir tells of their adventures on the path, and of coming to terms with Moth’s illness and with their homelessness. It’s a moving reflection on life, love, aging, resilience, and the restorative power of nature and physical activity. The audio version read by the author made this an extra special experience.

[daftboy1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a good nice bit sad story of Married couple Raynor and Moth who are down on their luck, Just lost their home and Moth the Husband is dying.
They decide to go a big walk 630 miles of the South West Coast path with hardly any money mostly staying in their tent, wild camping. They meet some characters along the way.
Moth actually gets better along the walk.
OK book
Bit boring in places
Could have done with some photos. (They were really poor so they probably never had a good smart phone at that time)
They actually do this walk in two stages.

[grandpahobo_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Incredible story. I have no clue about the English landscape or towns, but the descriptions still paint a vivid picture.

I found the transformation of the author's perspective to be the most powerful element of the book. It really is inspirational and gives you the sense that you can deal with pretty much anything if you are willing to let go of anything that isn't essential to you.

[m.belljackson · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

THE SALT PATH opens with a surprise mystery - what case did this couple lose that left them with NOTHING?
How could the Welsh Judge be so cruel? Why were there not more options for payment?

Next comes the disease and death diagnosis for the husband, Moth.

So , with THE WALKIES book as inspiration, they embark on a very long walk which enlivens
Moth's immune and mental and physical strength systems.

I skimmed a bit just to get to Something, ANYTHING, Good.

Vivid and evocative descriptions abound.

What feels strange is repeatedly being proud to be so filthy with bird's nest hair.

As well, there is no mention of dealing with any kind of bugs, from mosquitoes to ticks to mites
in all of their wild camping in forests.

[froxgirl · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This true story of a remarkable hike around coastal England is almost overshadowed by the circumstances causing the trek by a middle aged couple. Ray, wife, and Moth, husband, lose their small farm in Wales due to an unfortunate financial investment with a “friend” and are homeless. As they are being physically evicted from their home, Ray grabs a book, Five Hundred Mile Walkies, that she’d read in her twenties. With no alternative, no support network, they decide to walk 630 miles of the South West Coast Trail through four rugged cliff side locales. Moth has a progressive disease and the hikers have no reservoir of funds or friends to depend upon. This recounting of their truly remarkable journey is an astounding adventure.

[thewestwing-864351 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is a beautiful book! It’s a mixture of sadness, hope, and inner strength. It’s made me question a lot of beliefs I’ve had of society and how we treat people. Highly recommend!

[sharonmariabidwell · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Beautifully written with an underlying longing for hope, this book offers a journey that will drag the reader through mires of sadness, love, and optimism. If I have any criticism, it’s that a few dialog tags in places would have helped me more easily work out when it was Ray and when it was Moth talking, but that is a minor point. It also throws a light on what it is to be homeless in a way that makes the reader question the easy statistics governments throw at us. In a world where it’s now even easier for the hardworking to find themselves in a similar predicament, one should feel for Raynor and Moth and ask themselves what they would have done in a similar situation, for both of them turn out to be extremely hardworking people who slept where they slept because they had nowhere else to go.

I almost let a few negative reviews put me off reading this. Judging those comments now, I can feel some don’t get the situation this couple were thrust in. They were not killing time, but trying to find a new direction, working out how to cope with devastating news, and learning and relearning so much about themselves. True, there was one small incidence of shoplifting — for food when they were desperate. Those so easy to condemn need to walk in less fortunate shoes. For those who have a love for the southwest and who have walked any stretch of the path, this will speak to them. Their diet was far from ideal, but there aren’t exactly massive supermarkets along the route, and there’s not much such person can cook on a tiny gas stove. Anyone who questions or criticises the way they ‘survived’ on the South-West Coast path, I can only imagine they’ve walked no stretch of it. It’s not something I would want to do without B&B arranged along the way, and plenty of funds to pay for food. Apparently, the couple now live in Cornwall, do charity work for the homeless, and Moth got his degree.

[stbalbach_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Such an amazing book. The hiker-girl-in-personal-crisis had its day with Cheryl Strayed, Raynor Winn takes it to a new level. There's a lot going on. A colorful and eventful travel book of South West England (Cornwall, Devon) told through the lens of homeless people, exposing a hypocritical soft underbelly of English culture. The English right to roam laws are revolutionary and one can only marvel at the possibilities if enacted in other countries. It has a Tolkien quality of little people on a great adventure (the only book they bring is Beowulf). There is incredible nature writing and writing in general. At it's core is a grand love story, a lasting memorial to the authors husband. As life is frozen in rock along the Jurassic Coast, so too will their story be set for the ages.

[fliss88_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What a story! It's hard to say much without giving things away. My emotions ran through disbelief, sadness, amazement and disbelief again. By the end of the book I felt totally inspired and full of hope. There is a sequel which I can't wait to read. I need to know what happened to Raynor and her husband Moth. My fingers are crossed for them.

[tinkerbellkk · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A beautifully written memoir of a couple who takes to the trail when they suddenly become homeless. Their challenges were difficult and navigating 630 miles of trail in sometimes horrible weather conditions with barely any sustenance was an incredible story. I thought the author was truthful and humorous and loved her style of writing. Highly recommended.

[deltaqueen50 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Every once and awhile a book comes along that reaches out and speaks to all your senses, and The Salt Path by Raynor Winn was such a book for me. This is an uplifting memoir of a couple, Raynor and Moth Winn, who lose their house and livelihood through a bad investment. The day after losing their court battle, a doctor advises them that Moth had an incurable degenerative brain disease. Homeless and uncertain about their future or how to proceed with life, they walk. They choose to walk the 630 mile long South West Coast Path which follows the coastline of Somerset, North and South Devon, Cornwall and Dorset.

This would be a huge undertaking for anyone but for this couple, their age, financial situation and Moth’s disabilities made this an almost impossible undertaking. The author isn’t looking for pity and she doesn’t sugar-coat the situation but describes all the ups and downs they encounter along the way. This was a difficult undertaking yet somehow this trek with it’s views, wildlife, and freedom allowed them to accept and come to terms with their situation. Even having to cut their trip short due to winter setting in didn’t stop them, they returned the next summer and completed their journey.

The Salt Path was a powerful life-affirming story that the author tells in a realistic, humorous manner. As I followed the story I was googling the villages and beaches that were mentioned and I was amazed at the scenery, but this was so much more than a travel story. This couple totally won my heart with their affection and care for each other as well as the author’s honest and beautiful writing.

[samsattler · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a big fan of books written by people who test themselves by long, cross-country trips. It doesn’t matter whether they are walking, riding bicycles or motorbikes, boating, or even driving, I’ve always envied the authors. But now something a little different has come along: Raynor Winn has written a long-walk kind of memoir with a twist. The Salt Path is about the 630-mile walk along part of England’s southern coast that Raynor and her husband “Moth” took on only because they suddenly found themselves homeless and jobless. Needless to say, this time around I don’t envy the author one little bit.

It could perhaps be argued that Raynor and Moth brought their problems upon themselves, but the only thing they were really guilty of was being a little too naive and trusting when it came to doing business with a man Moth had known since childhood. When that man’s business failed, he wasted little time coming after the couple’s home and business to compensate himself for their supposed share of the failed company’s debts and obligations. Raynor and Moth tried to defend themselves in court, but not being able to afford a competent attorney turned out to be their downfall- and at the end, they were left with only a few days to vacate the property. Everything they owned, and life as they knew it, was gone.

Well, it could just not get much worse than that, could it? The short answer is “yes, it could,” and it does exactly that when within a matter of days of losing their home and everything they own, Moth is diagnosed with an illness likely to claim his life within five years. So, with no place to go, and no money other than the minimal benefits they are eligible for each month, Raynor and Moth begin walking westward along England’s southern coast even though they have no idea what they will do once they come to the end of the trail months later.

The Salt Path is Winn’s account of what it was like for two people in their fifties to strap rather heavy packs onto their backs and trudge along during daylight hours without having any idea where they will be pitching their tent at the end of the day. Along the way, the pair endures the heat of the day, cold and wet nights that make it near impossible to sleep, the constant problem of finding enough water to keep themselves safely hydrated, and living on whatever meager diet they can afford. And if that is not already bad enough, they have to live with the societal stigma of being homeless when people they encounter along the way more times than not treat them as if they are carrying the plague simply because they are homeless. It is almost as if homelessness is a contagious disease.

Bottom Line: Sad as The Salt Path is, for this reader the saddest part of all is the way that their fellow citizens treat Ray and Moth as soon as they learn that the couple are not voluntary hikers/campers out on some lark. This is particularly disappointing when the penny drops in the middle of a conversation and Ray and Moth’s new “friends” abruptly excuse themselves and leave the area as quickly as their feet can carry them away. The Salt Path has a sequel titled The Wild Silence, but I’m not sure that I’m up to reading that one just yet.

[lisapeet · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An oddly affecting hiking memoir, which always sound so formulaic, but the setup here is that the author and her husband lost their home (which was also their livelihood) as part of a bad investment at the same time he was diagnosed with a terminal disease, so they just said fuck it and decided to walk the 630-mile path around the southwesternmost tip of England with not-great gear and almost no money. Which sounds like it could be all kinds of trite, but it was good—I liked it, anyway. Wynn has a very low-key style, and it feels more like a story you'd tell someone than a self-consciously literary effort. The fact that they weren't hobbyist hikers made it interesting—they were effectively homeless, and apparently looked it too, and people reacted accordingly. She doesn't go too deep into the civics of that, which I think was wise—as dire as their situation was, what they were doing was still a choice—but there was a certain desperation to what they were about. And it's more hopeful than dark, for all that. I suspect this just hit me at the right time, but I liked it and feel a bit soothed for having read it.

[teunduynstee · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Very mixed feelings about this book. Let's start with the good side.

Raynor Winn is an excellent writer. The style is flowing well, never feels constructed or awkward. She navigates along "inspirational" and even "spiritual" subjects without ever getting on my nerves. Mostly because of her straight-forward voice and those of her characters, which is the same, I guess. Even her husband Moth doesn't seem to be a character of his own. The couple feels like one character, struggling with the adverse situations always as one. I guess this is exactly what she wanted to bring across.

The first chapters I really liked. The emotional roller-coaster of a life spiraling into darkness was very well written. I cried at the scene of the old ewe that decided to die. Also the overall slow trajectory of getting from wrecked anxious couple to strong and independent "salted blackberries" wasn't lost on me. But the middle part of the book I really didn't enjoy. Too slow, not very credible (which is of course weird in a memoir), too repetitive. The little story lines that were sprinkled in felt very much like that: deliberately added because it was missing something. The background stories on the regions they pass through were (again) well-written and mildly interesting, but also clearly filler. From the winter on, it got more interesting again, with less predictable plot and some real development in the situation of the couple.

So all-in-all a nice and somewhat inspiring book, but not great. I really had a problem understanding the WHY of their situation. Surely, if you are in such a dire situation, there must be people you can ask for help. I understand that not many friends can indefinitely accommodate two extra people in their home, but I would expect just about anyone in their 50s to have a bit more social capital than this. I guess these people have just been very inward focused over the pre-book years. If you live in a small rural village for decades and raise two children there and then lose your house and livelihood in such an unjust way, I would imagine some support from neighbours and friends from the village. But maybe I'm wrong.

One more thing: there was one sentiment that this book described very well and which resonated with me: the feeling of dread for the end of a journey. Traveling on a long train ride or flight always has this effect on me. Of course I'm on that flight to get somewhere, I don't particularly enjoy being on a plane, but when the destination comes in sight, I always hope that it will take a little longer. I feel comfortable in the known, settled uncomfortable place I'm in and start dreading the uncertainty of leaving. The last few chapters captured this very well. How you can feel anxious about the nearing end of the journey, however harsh, back-breaking and unsafe your journey is.

[alisony-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Raynor Winn had never written anything for publication before this book, and boy was she hiding her light under a bushel. Her turn of phrase is exquisite in this first book, and she nails that fine line of writing sublimely about nature without falling into the wordsmith trap of over-baking her descriptions.

This is her tale of a journey living with nature borne out of necessity. A country girl all her life, she and her husband Moth lived in their remote Welsh farm for decades, raising their children there, literally making the house habitable with their own two hands and enjoying a modest income from holidaymakers who came to stay in their barn conversion. When an investment in a good friend's business goes wrong, they find themselves on the hook for outstanding payments to creditors, and in the blink of an eye their house and their business is recovered by the bailiffs. In that same week, Winn's husband Moth is diagnosed with a terminal wasting disease. With no home, no income and a devastating prognosis for her husband, despite his deteriorating health they decide to take themselves off to walk and wild camp the Salt Path, a 600 odd mile path around Britain's south west coast.

This is a beautifully written book about finding one's self in the midst of the most terrible circumstances simply by being at one with nature and the elements. With only £40 in Government money coming in every few weeks, they subsist on the bare minimum of food with woefully sub-standard kit for the conditions, yet somewhere along this journey as two newly homeless people in their 50s they find a reason to go on, a reason to wake up in the morning. It's what lies beyond their journey on the path that becomes most terrifying in all senses.

I love this kind of book that's part travelogue, part homage to nature, and will be making a point of seeking out more titles from the Wainright prize shortlist. If you enjoy Robert Macfarlane type of books, The Salt Path is highly recommended. I'll be keeping an eye out for the follow up The Wild Silence. This is an author who deserves on so many fronts the success she's now carving out as an author.

4 stars - surprisingly beautiful writing.

[charlotteburt · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I pretty much devoured this as both an audiobook and ebook in a couple of days. A middle-aged couple (well '50s) lose their home and the husband is diagnosed with an incurable illness and they decide to walk the south-west coast path from beginning to end. I love reading about through hikes, and this one is right in my back yard but I have walked very little of it myself. It makes me want to get myself a tent and just head off into the sunset. Inspiring stuff.

[crazymamie · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

"Paddy Dillion walks from Hartland Quay to Bude - one of the most remote and difficult sections of the whole path - in a day. It had taken us three. But we survived, as we were surviving all the boulders of pain that had brought us to the path. Things that we thought we would never be able to bear were becoming less jagged, turned into round river stones by the movement of the path. It was still a heavy burden to carry, but just a little less painful to hold."

A huge thanks to Rhian for her fabulous review of this one last year which had me adding it to The List. It's every bit as good as she said it was.

The author and her husband lose their house in an investment gone wrong, but along with their house they also lose their livelihood because they used the other buildings on their farm as holiday rentals. As if this weren't enough, the husband is diagnosed with corticobasal degeneration, which is fatal. Raynor (the wife) comes up with a crazy idea that they should walk the South West Coastal Path (a distance of 630 miles). They will wild camp along the way because they cannot afford to stay at campsites. The journey will give them time to decided what to do next. And so they do. What results is a lovely bit of travel writing/memoir that is both reflective and heartening. She shares the good and the bad, the heartbreaking and the humorous, and yet it is not maudlin or self-pitying. It is one I know that I will read again. There is a follow up book titled [The Wild Silence] that comes out here in April of 2021 - very exciting!

"How can there be so few individuals who understand the need for people to have a space of their own? Does it take a time of crisis for us to see the plight of the homeless? Must they be escaping a war zone to be in need? As a people, can we only respond to need if we perceive it to be valid? If the homeless of our own country were gathered in a refugee camp, or rode the seas in boats of desperation, would we open our arms to them?"

[ken5me5old5mate · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What can you say about this book? It is heart reading, heart warming and heart breaking without being sentimental or melodramatic. Its simple honest format will carry you along on this sadly not uncommon journey

[infjsarah · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

My reading group has continued remotely via Zoom and it's been wonderful that it has done so. This was the May book. I am not usually someone who likes memoirs but I enjoyed this a lot. It's unusual but well written and dealing with a topic that is unfortunately likely to become more common soon - homelessness.

[askelmore · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Best for:
Those who like nature writing; those who appreciate quality narrative non-fiction; those who just want to remember what it is list to be outside.

In a nutshell:
Ray and Moth and in their 50s with two grown children. They have lost their home, which is also their farm and livelihood, to a sketchy business partner and a punitive judge. A couple of days later, Moth receives a diagnosis of a terminal neurological disorder. The decide to sell what they have left, store what they want to keep, and try to walk the 630-mile South West Coast Path, a.k.a. the peninsula in England just below Wales.

Worth quoting:
“Is it human nature to crave ritual? Is it instinctive to construct a safe environment before we allow ourselves to sleep? Can we ever truly rest without that security?”

“Does it take a time of crisis for us to see the plight of the homeless? Must they be escaping a war zone to be in need?”

Why I chose it:
This is the last book I purchased before we went into lock down. I bought it from a bookshop in central London, not realizing that I’d end up reading it during a time when I craved the outdoors.

Review:
There is a lot going on in this book. Not a lot in the sense that plot points keep coming - basically this book is literally just Ray and Moth hiking. But it’s beautifully written, and speaks to how easily one can find oneself without a home, and what people do to try to survive. It’s a bit cheesy to call it inspirational; I’m not about to sell my belongings to go walk 630 miles. But at the same time, it is inspirational. These people found a way to figure out how to keep living their lives when they had no money, no home, and a shit health prognosis.

They are clear about their situations — they don’t have access to unlimited funds and time like some people who choose o take the path. This is what they can think to do while they figure out what to do next. They get some benefits from the government (about £45 per week), so they are able to buy cheap food along the way. But that’s it. They aren’t on some romantic quest to find themselves; they are trying to survive.

Ray speaks about how people they encounter react when Ray and Moth share their situation. If they are ‘just’ backpackers, they’re usually treated with some respect and admiration. When they say that they are homeless, they are treated with disdain, or fear, as though it is catching.

Right now is a weird time. Those of us with homes who are under lock down may be struggling with feeling trapped within it, at times forgetting how wonderful it is to have a home we can be locked down in. There is a reason many countries are suddenly trying to provide shelter for those experiencing homelessness - COVID-19 is a threat to their health when they don’t have access to hand-washing options, or enough food to avoid shops on a daily basis. But not having a home isn’t just a challenge during disease outbreaks; it’s not something anyone should have to experience if they don’t want to, and it is frustrating that so many people don’t care about the people experiencing it.

Keep it / Pass to a Friend / Donate it / Toss it:
Donate it.

[steve38 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Just about the most irritating book I've read in a long time. A couple made homeless by a bad investment decide to walk the South West Coast Path. To add to their troubles the husband has been diagnosed with a serious, life threatening illness. The fact that they complete the walk with good humour and that the illness has been held at bay should make this into an inspirational story.

And in a way it is. But all along I was interrupting the author with a 'Why on earth did you do that?' or 'Why didn't you.....?' The lengthy walk was apparently decided on a whim. It would give them time to think, come to terms and adjust. You wouldn't expect them to be as prepared as if they were undertaking a long planned expedition. But they made life more difficult for themselves than it already was. They camped in poor spots when they needn't have done. They had very little money but they frittered it away on impulse buying of snacks. They refused to acknowledge their position and ask for help. They became preoccupied by making progress along their route without allowing themselves time to reflect and enjoy. They were exasperating companions.

The book itself is tolerably enough written but its structural seams were all too evident. A paragraph of purple nature prose inserted here and there. Post walk research of what they'd seen stuck in after a search of Wikipedia or local guide books. They made the South West Coast Path an obstacle course of holiday camps and crowded resorts policed by a legion of dog walkers. I was as glad to get to the end as they were.

[pdcread · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The bad news came fast, Raynor Winn's husband had just been diagnosed with a terminal illness, they had just lost a court case even though they had the evidence that they were not liable for debts and now the bailiffs were hammering on the door to take their farm and livelihood away. Their only income would be £48 per week. It is at times like these that some people would have a breakdown or consider a more permanent end to the problems, they didn't; inspired by the book 500 Mile Walkies by Mark Wallington they decided that as they were homeless anyway they may as well walk the south coast path.
 
With the precious little money they have, they buy a new lightweight tent, a couple of sleeping bags and new rucksacks and drive the van to Minehead in Somerset as that is where all the guidebooks begin. Moth's condition of corticobasal degeneration or CBD, meant that the doctor had advised him to take it easy and not to overdo it; probably not attempt a 630-mile walk around the spectacular coastline of the south-west. The first part of the footpath is probably the toughest section with the high cliffs and steep paths and it is a struggle for both, but Moth in particular. They have no money for official campsites, so wild camping was the way to go, ensuring that they found a place out of sight, and were packed up before they could be discovered in the morning.
 
They met all sorts of people of the walk, but telling those that they met that they were homeless would a lot of the time cause a lot of prejudice and they would be shunned, called tramps or worse. Sitting eating a shared pack of budget noodles when other are stuffing pasties and ice creams in, is quite soul destroying. However, there were others who would be prepared to help, providing hot drinks, paying for food, and even a millionaire wine importer who wined and dined them for an evening. One man they met on a cliff path told them about salted blackberries, picked right at the very end of the season just before they turned when the flavour was most intense and dusted with the salt from the sea they gorged on them whenever they could find them. They had completed a fair chunk of the route, before stopping and staying with a friend, earning a little money and starting to plan a future once again. Rather than head back to where they had stopped, they came to Poole and started from the other end walking through the Jurassic Coast back to the place that they had stopped a few months previously.
 

This is a heartwarming and inspiring story of a couples fight back against a life-changing legal decision that left them totally penniless. Winn writes with an honesty that is quite moving, she is open with her feelings and her thoughts about the people she meets on their walk and the events that led to them walking. There are some moments in here that may make you cry as well as some amusing anecdotes that will have you chuckling. What does come across throughout the book is the inner strength of Raynor and Moth, to overcome a financial situation that most could not recover from, the way that Moth manages to use the walk to improve his health and that being in the right place at the right time can offer an opportunity that can be life-changing. If there is one thing that can be taken from this, it is that there is nothing that human optimism can't overcome. 4.5 stars