Her steely account of homelessness and hope in the face of adversity captivated more than two million readers worldwide and was this year made into a film featuring A-list stars Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs.
But Raynor Winn’s story of losing her home before embarking on a mammoth trek of the South West Coast Path in her best-selling 2018 memoir, The Salt Path, may not be as ‘unflinchingly honest’ as she has suggested – after bombshell claims emerged that she allegedly lied about key elements of her story.
An investigation has reportedly discovered that The Salt Path’s protagonists, Raynor Winn and her husband, Moth, are in fact Sally and Tim Walker.
And rather than being forced out of their rural home in Wales when an investment in a childhood friend’s business went awry, it was allegedly repossessed after Winn stole around £64,000 from a former employer and then failed to repay a debt agreed on terms that the police would not be involved.
Serious questions have also been raised about Moth’s debilitating illness, corticobasal degeneration [CBD], a rare neurological condition in the same family as Parkinson’s disease, which is central to the book.
The life expectancy for sufferers after diagnosis is around six to eight years – however Moth has been living with the condition for 18 years with no apparent visible symptoms.
An investigation by The Observer contacted a number of neurologists specialising in CBD, with one telling the newspaper that his history with the illness ‘does not pass the sniff test.’
Raynor Winn and her husband, Moth, also known as Sally and Tim Walker
The Winns at the one of the film premieres of The Salt Path adaptation earlier this year
Raynor Winn at home in Cornwall. She has become a huge success since her book’s release
Released in 2018, The Salt Path details the Winns’ decision to embark on the South West Coast Path when they lose their home after investing a ‘substantial sum’ into a friend’s business which ultimately failed.
They say they are taken to court by the friend but lose the case and their house. The memoir describes their walk and survival with minimal funds.
It prompted two sequels and the film adaptation, which was released in May, starring The X Files’ Anderson and Isaacs, who recently starred in HBO’s The White Lotus.
The Winns posed for photographs alongside the actors on the red carpet in London at the film’s premiere.
However it is now claimed that the Winns actually lost their 17th century farmhouse in rural North Wales when Winn stole around £64,000 from the late Martin Hemmings, her former boss at his family-run estate agency, where she worked as a bookkeeper. Martin has since died.
But his wife Ros told The Observer: ‘Her claims that it was all just a business deal that went wrong really upset me.
‘When really she had embezzled the money from my husband. It made me feel sick.’
After initially suspecting she had stolen around £9,000, when the true amount began to emerge, the police were reportedly called in and Winn was arrested.
The Winns with Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs, the stars of the film adaptation
Raynor Winn and Moth, who were formerly known as Sally and Tim Walker, the probe revealed
Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs in the film adaptation of The Salt Path, released in May
The Winns are then said to have visited a distant relative of ‘Moth’ in London who agreed he would lend them the money to repay the stolen funds – as long as the Hemmings agreed not to pursue a criminal case.
However the loaned money accrued substantial interest and eventually exceeded £150,000, it is said. When the relative’s business then failed, there was a court case and the Winns’ home was repossessed to repay the relative’s business associates.
It is also claimed that, rather than finding themselves ‘homeless’ when they lost their property in Wales, the Winns owned a property in the south-west of France, which they had purchased in 2007.
Ros Hemmings told The Observer she was glad her husband didn’t live long enough to see the publication of the book and release of the film.
‘It would have made him so angry,’ she said.
Winn’s agent and literary agent were approached for comment.
In a statement to The Observer through their lawyers, Winn said: ‘The Salt Path lays bare the physical and spiritual journey Moth and I shared, an experience that transformed us completely and altered the course of our lives. This is the true story of our journey.’
