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The South West Coast Path is a National Trail in England, and at 630 miles is the country’s longest footpath. Husband and wife Moth and Raynor Winn set out on the path while in their 50s in 2013 after being dealt a slew of bad cards: they lost money in a bad business deal, which resulted in their losing their home in Wales, and Moth was given a terminal diagnosis. At rock bottom, the couple hit the trail and camped in the wild. At the end of their trek, the Winns said Moth’s illness had all but disappeared. Raynor detailed their experience in the 2018 memoir The Salt Path, which has sold over 2 million copies and was recently made into a movie starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs. There’s just one problem: it isn’t all true. There’s truthiness to it, like the fact that the couple hit the road after incurring debt. But instead of them being the victims of a bad deal, turns out Moth and Raynor Winn — real names Tim and Sally Walker — actually embezzled money and left to flee collectors, as The Observer just exposed:
Fiction: In the book, Winn said she and her husband Moth lost a substantial sum of money after making a bad investment in a friend’s business, which left them liable for his debts when the company failed. She said it ultimately led to the couple losing their home. Around the same time, Winn wrote, Moth was diagnosed with corticobasal degeneration (CBD), which usually has a life expectancy of around six to eight years. Winn said after she and Moth became homeless and Moth was diagnosed with CBD, the couple decided in 2013 to set off on the South West Coast Path. The book documents the pair eventually walking the full 630-mile route, living off a small amount of money in weekly tax credits each week, and wild camping every night. … The book ends with the couple getting a fresh start with the offer of new accommodation. As a result of the walk, Winn says her husband’s health improved, and he has now lived for 12 years since the diagnosis.
Non-Fiction, courtesy of The Observer: The investigation claims the couple lost their home in North Wales after Winn defrauded her employer of £64,000, and not in a bad business deal as she originally suggested. The couple reportedly borrowed £100,000 with 18% interest, secured against their house, from a distant relative, in order to repay the money she had been accused of stealing. The Observer said the couple also had a £230,000 mortgage on the same property, meaning that their combined debts exceeded the value of the house. The couple’s home was then reportedly repossessed after they were sued to recover the money they had borrowed. … The newspaper also said it had spoken to medical experts who were sceptical about Moth having CBD, given his long survival after diagnosis, lack of acute symptoms and his apparent ability to reverse them. It also reports that Raynor and Moth Winn are not the couple’s real names.
Raynor’s rebuttal: In a statement released via literary agents Graham Maw Christie, Winn said: “Today’s Observer article is highly misleading. We are taking legal advice and won’t be making any further comment at this time.” The statement continued: “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.”
If you’re like me, the first red flag came with the name “Moth.” I spent the early part of this article thinking, “Who names a kid Moth?!” But then I checked myself, saying, “Come on Kismet, you love unusual names. Look at Butterfly McQueen! Why is ‘Butterfly’ ok but not ‘Moth,’ hmm?” So after addressing and correcting my Lepidoptera biases, I was stung all over again with the revelation of their real name: Walker. You guys, she wrote a book about their 630-mile walk… and didn’t use the gift of their surname Walker! I understand the nom de plume was probably to avoid someone tracking them down for the money they stole, but I still think not using the name Walker for a walking book has to be some sort of crime in and of itself!
As for suggesting that a degenerative disease could be treated, or even cured, just by taking a hike, that sounds an awful lot like “Vitamin A cures Measles” territory. The thing about this whole story is, Raynor Winn/Sally Walker could have written a powerful memoir based on the facts, honestly holding themselves to account. But recasting themselves as the victims is arrogant, while spreading misinformation about a serious disease is pernicious. As The Observer ended their article: “And people don’t just read and watch The Salt Path, they act on it; people with hopes and health problems, setting off believing that they’re following a true path. The consequences of that may mostly be trivial but there’s the potential, too, for real harm.”
No one fact checked this before publishing the book or making a movie out of it? Ugh.
It’s Belle Gibson all over again.
You’d think publishers would be more careful- when something looks too good to be true (particularly when it involves terminal diseases) it usually is.
Yup, they wanted to believe in the fantasy instead of the ugly reality.
I thought of Belle as soon as I read this, and Belle is still in denial of the truth 😮
Scammers gonna scam. It’s what they do.
I have to say it: if it was a black person (or person of color, even) they would have had to prove it, IF they had even made it as far as completing the ‘walk’ without multiple harassment while walking.
Siiiiiiigh!!!!!
Most publishers don’t fact check, and if an author wants one they have to pay for it themselves. They just stick a disclaimer in the frontmatter that “this is a work of imagination”.
It’s too bad though, the whole thing would have been way more interesting if they’d come to grips with their own role in their fate, and you know, the crimes. But grifters gonna grift.
Wow! Taking a hike cured a disease! Well now had I known and read the book I could have saved myself from some chemo and some of its lingering side effects. So it’s not true taking a hike won’t cure a disease. I hope that people who read the book didn’t think that they could be healed that way but when people are desperate for a cure they will do many things. I hope their creditors come for their book and movie money!
THREE times!! They’ve written three books, and each one starts with him being told his terminal illness has come back, and ends with him feeling fine and going to the doctor for a scan and being told that his terminal illness has magically vanished.
Then at the start of the next book it’s back again, cured again, back again, ad infinitum.
Oh, wow! People fell for that THREE TIMES???? 🤦♀️
Coming off my TBR list of 1,200 or so books! Life is short.
Hahahaha! Right?! All that expensive treatment and worries about whether recovery is possible was for nothing.
I did a quick google on CBD. Doesn’t seem to be something you’d want to be hiking a trail with. I have a progressive peripheral neuropathy (not fatal, I’m OK) & the thing with progressive diseases is, you don’t often know your capabilities because they change. Maybe at the start of a long journey (not sure how long 630 miles would take to walk, factoring in time to pitch & un-pitch a tent) he would have been fine, but really struggling toward the end. That is, of course, if it were a real diagnosis, which now is maybe not the case?
Also, as someone who grew up in Oregon where camping was the standard family vacation & going to the river a standard family weekend thing to do, I had to snicker a bit at the ‘wild camping’ term. ‘Wild camping’! 🤭🙄 Goes along with their ‘wild swimming’. In Oregon, it’s just camping or swimming in the river/lake/ocean! Ah, Great Britain, you don’t know what ‘wild’ is.
Oh, this is too long already, but I’d like to add: I watched a great series on some streamer called ‘The Thief, His Wife, and the Canoe’. THAT was a fascinating story (based on a true story, I believe) & I think these two should have gone that route. Or maybe not them, but the movie makers. Or might they face fraud charges of some sort? She was already charged with embezzlement.
Want to add, @Susan Collins: I’ve been told prayer multiple times a day will cure my CMT; also green juices multiple times a day. 🙄 By random strangers, no less!
I’m so tired of people being hucksters and just generally sh$t. How can there be so much goodness in the world AND yet just shameful behavior too? The human condition, I suppose, but #$%^&*().
It’s also interesting to me how these liars/frauds are so incredibly bold. Why are bad people so damn bold??
So many scammers are narcissists: lack of empathy, grandiose self-importance, entitlement, deception, exploitation, presentation of a false self. That’s why they’re so bold–they just don’t care about anyone except themselves.
Shoo how did i miss this book lol. My friend says i’m a sales man’s dream customer because i’m that gulible, so ‘im glad i’m living under a rock at the moment
Someone stop them! They’re encroaching into Princess Kate’s “nature is healing” territory!
In more ways than one.
🤭
Shades of A Million Little Pieces.
I was thinking the same thing. I remember him being on Oprah and her fawning over him and then tried to be dismissive it when it came out the book wasn’t true. People really were pissed at her for that. She eventually had to eat crow over it.
Was she dismissive? I remember her bringing him back on the show to confront him about the lies.
Exactly. I was thinking, this has happened before right??
She defended him initially. He was on Larry King and she called in saying basically it was much ado about nothing initially. I vividly remember this and then people got mad at her for it. I know he came back on the show and she was clearly angry.
Knew it, knew it, KNEW IT. I feel so vindicated!
I read The Salt Path last year, brought it up at the Thanksgiving dinner table. Family consensus was: over-the-top fraud.
This is my favorite subcategory of crime — the fake memoir scandal. It always brutally exposes everyone who was too dense to not do a Google search or background check before paying millions for the book and movie rights.
Agreed , about 15 years ago there was the woman who’d supposedly written about her wretched childhood and had included filched sections from Jane Eyre, Brighton Rock and Hilary Mantel’s own memoirs. She was only exposed when Hilary was giving a book reading and a fan handed her the new book because she’d recognised the offending passages were plagiarized! Hilary was shocked that a respectable publisher couldn’t recognised very well known passages from Jane Eyre at Lowood school when they read the “authentic memoirs.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/bloomsbury-withdraws-paperback-accused-of-plagiarising-jane-eyre-and-brighton-rock-305546.html
Bloomsbury was the publisher and the autobiography with plagiarised passages from well known authors occurred in 2005!
Ironically, the real story would’ve been a much more narratively compelling movie! I want to watch the movie about the grifters setting out on a hike to avoid their creditors and cooking up a plan for a fake memoir over the campfire.
SO much more interesting! What a missed opportunity smdh..
Wouldn’t it be amazing if they made a movie about them being exposed as grifters and Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs reprised their roles?
You might enjoy The Thief, His Wife, and a Canoe!
https://share.google/RA29lgIg4arNIfFeR
Response from the relevant charity. My neighbour ‘s husband has just died after 6 years of declining health with PSP (same disease that killed Dudley Moore.) Moth’s CBD is similar to PSP and the above charity supports individuals with both diseases. Neighbour had read The Salt Path because of Moth’s involvement with this charity. Her husband’s health was progressively reduced by this degenerative disease until prior to his death could neither speak nor swallow. He communicated his love for her through his eyes. She was incredulous that fresh air and walking 630 miles cured Moth but thought as he was working with the charity that he had legitimacy .
That’s so utterly cruel. How do they sleep at night? How could he work with people who have this disease & pretend he does as well? Despicable.
Gillian Anderson looks in that photo as if she sensed the griftiness.
It really is gross that frauds like these two instill false hope in other people with terminal illness. To me, that’s the very worst part about this.
Agreed @Quitecontrary they have also upset the charity that accepted them in good faith and could have damaged the charity’s reputation hence their decisive action in cutting of ties and putting a statement out on their website. It is a rotten thing to deceive people with this awful, terminal disease and the charity that exists to support them. Why tell such fantastic lies that are easily disproved??
The real crime is not casting Meryl Streep as the lead.
I can’t stop laughing at the publicist being named Graham Maw Christie.
Not using Walker to describe the walkers is the worst part of this story! They chose the worst character pen names.
This isn’t the first memoir that is only factual with a creative writer’s license, so the lack of fact checking in this day and age seems negligent. Thanks for saving me from reading these grifter’s book!
I recently learned (thru Tom & Lorenzo) that the publisher doesn’t usually pay for research/fact-checking, or creating an index. The cost is paid by the author(s). Probably same for film/TV.
If I were an established actor, I think I’d pay for a researcher to investigate before taking on this kind of role. So obvious there’s phony at least somewhere in their story.
BTW – News still pay for their own researchers, but who knows how long that will last