Salt Path author hits back at 'vile' claims

A BESTSELLING author has launched an impassioned defence of the events in Wales that sparked her 2018 bestseller, The Salt Path.

- ANDREW FORGRAVE

A national newspaper alleged Raynor Winn had misrepresented her life story and the reasons why she and her husband, Moth, lost their house in Gwynedd.

The Salt Path followed the couple's 630-mile walk along Cornwall's coast path after being forced from their 17th-century cottage near Pwllheli. A few days after learning of the repossession, Moth was diagnosed with a terminal illness.

The book has sold more than two million copies worldwide, and in late May, a film about their odyssey, starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs, was released in the UK.

The Observer alleged the couple had not lost their home in a bad business deal, as Ms Winn described in the book. The newspaper claimed they were unable to repay £100,000 they had borrowed to repay money she had been accused of stealing from a previous employer, an estate agency in Pwllheli.

Ms Winn has said she is taking legal advice, and in a 2,300-word statement posted on her website, she denied the allegations and dismissed questions raised by The Observer about the nature of her husband's medical condition.

In the article, the newspaper said it had toured Pwllheli, five miles south of the couple's former home, and had spoken to local people. Among them was a garage owner who alleged he was still owed £800.

As the couple had subsequently found fame under new names, he said he was “astonished to learn that the woman played by Gillian Anderson was the same one he'd done business with”.