Power of the path

With the film adaptation of The Salt Path incoming, Vivienne Crow chats to author Raynor Winn on how the book changed her life and what it's like to see Gillian Anderson play her on the big screen

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There are dozens of books out there about long-distance paths. Writers tell of battling storms, relaxing in cosy B&Bs, being chased by bullocks or delighting in wildlife encounters. They don’t usually face castigation from strangers or need to count out pennies to calculate whether they can afford to eat.

Homelessness and degenerative brain diseases don’t usually figure either. But these were the realities when Raynor Winn and her husband Moth started walking the South West Coast Path in 2013, an experience Raynor wrote about in her bestselling book The Salt Path.

For the previous 20 years, the couple had lived on a farm in the Welsh hills; it had been their beloved family home as well as their source of income. Then they lost it all in a legal battle. At the same time, Moth was diagnosed with a rare brain disease called corticobasal syndrome (CBS). Doctors advised taking things easy. So the couple, in their 50s, bought a cheap tent and set off on 630 miles of rugged cliff hiking along the famous National Trail.

The Salt Path tells of this journey, the hardships they experienced but also the glories of the landscape and nature’s redemptive powers when you have little choice but to put one foot in front of the other and focus on survival. Described by The Guardian as a “beautiful, thoughtful, lyrical story of homelessness, human strength and endurance”, the book’s life-affirming story has proved a big hit, selling more than two million copies worldwide.

That success has had a profound impact on the lives of Raynor and Moth. Not long after publication, an appreciative reader asked if they’d take on the rundown farm he owned near Fowey in Cornwall. Their experience of restoring the Georgian farmhouse and of nurturing the land to benefit wildlife forms the basis of Raynor’s second bestseller, The Wild Silence. With a third book under her belt -