On the Salt Path
Sep. 3rd, 2025 01:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustI was mildly intrigued by Raynor Winn's The Salt Path when it first came out: Angela Harding's beautiful cover design may have had something to do with that, but I was also curious about how this long-distance walk, udertaken so capriciously, would work out for Raynor and Moth. Sooner or later, a copy would turn up in a charity shop, and I'd leaf through it and see whether I wanted to read more...
It turned out to be later, rather than sooner. By the time I finally found a copy, in the Red Cross shop in Inverurie, The Observer had published its exposé and the book was headline news: discussed on YouTube by Marina Hyde and Richard Osman, no less!
The first big revelation concerned the reason the couple had lost their house, which did seem to be a matter of solid facts, and had me muttering that surely Penguin Random House (the publisher in question) employs a lawyer: the narrative is presented as a true story, so the perfidious 'Cooper' must be identifiable... The second revelation is more uncertain: the progress (and indeed retreat) of Moth's medical condition does not match the experience of others with the same diagnosis. This can happen, but I suspect it is what has most fuelled the backlash: if people feel they've been offered hope which does not work out for them, they are likely to be furious, even without the suggestion that it may be fraudulent.
So I came to The Salt Path not only spoilered but counter-spoilered. Couple face adversity by taking on the South West Coast Path, and are transformed by the experience: can you even call it a spoiler when it is also the big marketing pitch for the book? My copy comes with a number of critical endorsements, all of which praise the book for its inspirational qualities: "a tale of triumph; of hope over despair..." "a remarkable and redemptive journey". Never mind the quality of the writing, just benefit from the message.
Oddly, the first effect of actually reading the book, after all this, was to reduce my scepticism. Winn's response to her critics had been that, whatever the reason for the walk, the walk itself and what it did for us is real. And no-one seemed to be questioning that, yet it was the thing that had struck me from the beginning as implausible: if your reaction to the loss of your home is just to walk away from it (and I can, up to a point, see that) then don't you just step out of the door and keep walking? (Thank you, Bilbo Baggins.) Or, if you need a designated path, head for the nearest one? And I shared the puzzlement of this bookseller who blogged about the book two years ago:
The choice of the South West Coast Path still seems arbitrary (based on the rediscovery of a tattered copy of Mark Wallington's Five Hundred Mile Walkies) but the narrative does explains the rejection - a purely emotional response - of anything closer to home. And although it is never spelled out, there are hints that the Winns have, in the past, been enthusiastic hikers, dragging their reluctant children on family walks. They may be novice wild campers, but I am prepared to believe they still own boots - I'm impressed that those boots were still good for 630 miles, but I can believe it, and I can believe in the walk itself, at least in its broad outlines. The criticisms in this follow-up article in the Observer reinforce that: a couple who met the Winns on the path complain that they are not exactly as portrayed in the book. They are entitled to feel aggrieved: I wouldn't fancy being re-written to enhance someone else's narrative, either. At the same time, they confirm that the Winns did walk the path, and, as the book says, concealed the fact that they were homeless. My mother felt that every story could be improved - tightened up, polished - and that if it could be, it should be: I took it for granted that
The Salt Path had been similarly improved.
What did surprise me, though, was a recurring theme of people who are not what they seem. The context may have made me more than usually alert to this, but I wasn't imagining it, and it begins before we even reach the path. In Glastonbury, breaking the drive to the start point, Winn observes a young man begging: "despite the grubby clothes, ragged hair and ripped hat, he had the look of a smooth-skinned, perfect-toothed, clear-eyed public schoolboy." Thereafter she refers to him as "the Etonian", and his actions justify her suspicions. Later they pass a location which they identify: "that actor from that film lived here...": that would be Joss Ackland and "that film" would be First and Last in which he walks from Land's End to John O'Groats, "Do you think he actually walked much at all or was it just for the film?" they wonder (it isn't always obvious who speaks which line of their dialogue; I suspect that this is Raynor, changing the subject from Moth's fears about his impending death, but it is not explicit). Moth is repeatedly "recognised" as someone who is known to be walking in the area incognito - this turns out to be the poet (not yet, at the time of publication, laureate) Simon Armitage. Published photographs don't show any physical resemblance between the two men, but the will to believe is strong, and will not be denied. At first Moth is bewildered, then annoyed, but eventually in St Ives (where, as it happens, their itinerary coincides with that of the real Simon Armitage), he embraces his inner poet and gives an impromptu reading from Seamus Heaney's Beowulf.
One encounter provoked by this misidentification is with a wealthy man who offers the walkers a night's hospitality, and tells them a vivid version of his life story, which his wife promptly denies: "Take no notice of him..." and she offers a brief and less colourful story. Raynor muses:
She relates this to the couple's decision not to reveal their homeless condition: not only does this have the advantage of not alarming the people they meet, it salves their own grief. But in the context of what was to come, she might as well have prefaced the entire book with it: reader, you have been warned.
On YouTube, Paul Whitewick has an entirely different approach, criticising the book for using the term 'Salt Path', as a hook to get you to watch his video about the evidence of English place names for the early history of the salt trade. Interesting in itself, this also provides YouTube's subtitles with challenges they can't surmount: my favourite is 'the Dough Bunny' tribe.
It turned out to be later, rather than sooner. By the time I finally found a copy, in the Red Cross shop in Inverurie, The Observer had published its exposé and the book was headline news: discussed on YouTube by Marina Hyde and Richard Osman, no less!
The first big revelation concerned the reason the couple had lost their house, which did seem to be a matter of solid facts, and had me muttering that surely Penguin Random House (the publisher in question) employs a lawyer: the narrative is presented as a true story, so the perfidious 'Cooper' must be identifiable... The second revelation is more uncertain: the progress (and indeed retreat) of Moth's medical condition does not match the experience of others with the same diagnosis. This can happen, but I suspect it is what has most fuelled the backlash: if people feel they've been offered hope which does not work out for them, they are likely to be furious, even without the suggestion that it may be fraudulent.
So I came to The Salt Path not only spoilered but counter-spoilered. Couple face adversity by taking on the South West Coast Path, and are transformed by the experience: can you even call it a spoiler when it is also the big marketing pitch for the book? My copy comes with a number of critical endorsements, all of which praise the book for its inspirational qualities: "a tale of triumph; of hope over despair..." "a remarkable and redemptive journey". Never mind the quality of the writing, just benefit from the message.
Oddly, the first effect of actually reading the book, after all this, was to reduce my scepticism. Winn's response to her critics had been that, whatever the reason for the walk, the walk itself and what it did for us is real. And no-one seemed to be questioning that, yet it was the thing that had struck me from the beginning as implausible: if your reaction to the loss of your home is just to walk away from it (and I can, up to a point, see that) then don't you just step out of the door and keep walking? (Thank you, Bilbo Baggins.) Or, if you need a designated path, head for the nearest one? And I shared the puzzlement of this bookseller who blogged about the book two years ago:
Nor is there material as to her previous experience of [long-distance walking]. The pair are presented as naïve and ingenu. Their sleeping-bags are cheap lightweights and do not provide insulation on the cold nights they spend on the exposed headlands. They choose to spend their limited money on fast food which fails both to satisfy and to meet energy needs. And yet there is no mention of their boots. For all Winn bemoans the blisters and aches of the journey, we are in the dark regarding this most-crucial of items. She made a big saving by buying a £38 dome tent on eBay; I doubt they would have been allowed such economies with footwear and my guess is they did it properly-shod.
The choice of the South West Coast Path still seems arbitrary (based on the rediscovery of a tattered copy of Mark Wallington's Five Hundred Mile Walkies) but the narrative does explains the rejection - a purely emotional response - of anything closer to home. And although it is never spelled out, there are hints that the Winns have, in the past, been enthusiastic hikers, dragging their reluctant children on family walks. They may be novice wild campers, but I am prepared to believe they still own boots - I'm impressed that those boots were still good for 630 miles, but I can believe it, and I can believe in the walk itself, at least in its broad outlines. The criticisms in this follow-up article in the Observer reinforce that: a couple who met the Winns on the path complain that they are not exactly as portrayed in the book. They are entitled to feel aggrieved: I wouldn't fancy being re-written to enhance someone else's narrative, either. At the same time, they confirm that the Winns did walk the path, and, as the book says, concealed the fact that they were homeless. My mother felt that every story could be improved - tightened up, polished - and that if it could be, it should be: I took it for granted that
The Salt Path had been similarly improved.
What did surprise me, though, was a recurring theme of people who are not what they seem. The context may have made me more than usually alert to this, but I wasn't imagining it, and it begins before we even reach the path. In Glastonbury, breaking the drive to the start point, Winn observes a young man begging: "despite the grubby clothes, ragged hair and ripped hat, he had the look of a smooth-skinned, perfect-toothed, clear-eyed public schoolboy." Thereafter she refers to him as "the Etonian", and his actions justify her suspicions. Later they pass a location which they identify: "that actor from that film lived here...": that would be Joss Ackland and "that film" would be First and Last in which he walks from Land's End to John O'Groats, "Do you think he actually walked much at all or was it just for the film?" they wonder (it isn't always obvious who speaks which line of their dialogue; I suspect that this is Raynor, changing the subject from Moth's fears about his impending death, but it is not explicit). Moth is repeatedly "recognised" as someone who is known to be walking in the area incognito - this turns out to be the poet (not yet, at the time of publication, laureate) Simon Armitage. Published photographs don't show any physical resemblance between the two men, but the will to believe is strong, and will not be denied. At first Moth is bewildered, then annoyed, but eventually in St Ives (where, as it happens, their itinerary coincides with that of the real Simon Armitage), he embraces his inner poet and gives an impromptu reading from Seamus Heaney's Beowulf.
One encounter provoked by this misidentification is with a wealthy man who offers the walkers a night's hospitality, and tells them a vivid version of his life story, which his wife promptly denies: "Take no notice of him..." and she offers a brief and less colourful story. Raynor muses:
When you tell a story, the first person you must convince is yourself; if you can make yourself believe it's true, then everyone else will follow.
She relates this to the couple's decision not to reveal their homeless condition: not only does this have the advantage of not alarming the people they meet, it salves their own grief. But in the context of what was to come, she might as well have prefaced the entire book with it: reader, you have been warned.
On YouTube, Paul Whitewick has an entirely different approach, criticising the book for using the term 'Salt Path', as a hook to get you to watch his video about the evidence of English place names for the early history of the salt trade. Interesting in itself, this also provides YouTube's subtitles with challenges they can't surmount: my favourite is 'the Dough Bunny' tribe.
