Raynor Winn may have fabricated details in her 2018 memoir The Salt Path, but she’s on a genuine salty path now! Raynor and her husband Moth have been mum on responding to The Observer’s damning weekend reporting that exposed many of the unsavory (salt pun!) truths of the circumstances that led the Winns, aka Sally and Tim Walker, to hit the 630-mile South West Coast Path while homeless. They said they were waiting on “legal advice,” which apparently came in, because Sally Raynor Winn Walker (in my head I’m calling her Martha Marcy May Marlene) just posted a long ass rebuttal, in which she addresses each allegation, and caps the whole thing off with redacted pictures of some of Moth’s medical records. Funny, then, how her statement only left me with more questions. The whole thing is too long to excerpt (you can read it here), but Deadline dug into some of the salient points:
The author of the bestselling memoir that was adapted for Toronto festival hit The Salt Path issued a long statement Wednesday answering allegations about her book that were raised in a UK newspaper article. Raynor Winn says the report in The Observer this week “is grotesquely unfair, highly misleading and seeks to systematically pick apart my life.”
The film, starring Gillian Anderson as Winn and Jason Isaacs as her ailing husband Moth Winn, is an adaptation of a supposedly true-to-life book about the couple’s journey along the South of England coast after they lose their home and the husband is diagnosed with corticobasal syndrome, a rare progressive neurological disease.
The Observer published a story on Saturday headlined “The real Salt Path: how a blockbuster book and film were spun from lies, deceit and desperation.” Written by investigative reporter Chloe Hadjimatheou, it alleges that Ros Hemmings, a widow in her 60s living in rural North Wales, “knew something about Winn that almost everyone — her publishers, her agents, the film producers — had missed. She knew that Raynor Winn wasn’t her real name and that several aspects of her story were untrue. She also believed she was a thief.”
In her statement, Winn adds: “Over the past few days, I have had vitriol poured on me from all quarters, along with threats directed at me, my family, and our children. It has been incredibly hard to remain silent, something I’ve had to do while waiting to receive legal advice. That legal advice is ongoing, but I can now speak up.”
She adds: “It’s important to say, the Observer were offered the opportunity, by my lawyers, to discuss in detail the allegations made against me to correct their inaccurate account and to be guided on the truth, on the basis that the discussion would not be made public. However, they chose not to take it, preferring to pursue their highly misleading narrative.”
I can only surmise that the “legal advice” Raynor was waiting for, was the sign off from her lawyers that her language was appropriately vague enough to sound affronted at the accusations, while not definitively refuting them. Calling the Observer article “grotesquely unfair, highly misleading and seeks to systematically pick apart my life,” is not saying that the reporting is untrue! And the wording of this section was also curious: “The Observer were offered the opportunity, by my lawyers, to discuss in detail the allegations made against me to correct their inaccurate account and to be guided on the truth, on the basis that the discussion would not be made public.” Like The Observer’s approach to investigating Raynor’s life, there is so much to pick apart in that one sentence. For starters, the wishy-washy comment that her lawyers would guide the reporter to the truth. What, like the lawyers were leading a treasure hunt? Or meditation class? But I think the really consequential item is the bit about only speaking with The Observer off the record. To paraphrase a truly rotten excuse of a president, why do people plead the fifth if they have nothing to hide?
Anyway, please read the whole screed for yourselves and report back!
Photos credit: Nikita Kolinz/Future Image/Cover Images, Nikita Kolinz/Future Image/Cover Images, IMAGO/Dave Bedrosian/Avalon