The author of The Salt Path has hit back at claims that parts of the bestselling book were false, saying vitriol had been poured on her since the investigation was published.
Raynor Winn said the past few days had been some of the hardest of her life and that accusations that her husband had fabricated his illness were heartbreaking.
Winn’s much-loved story, now a film starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs, tells how she and her husband, Moth, walked the South West Coast Path, a journey of 630 miles, after losing their home and after he was diagnosed with a neurological condition.
But on Sunday, The Observer said she may have misrepresented the events that led to the couple’s losing their home and reported that experts had doubts over Moth having corticobasal degeneration (CBD).
The newspaper, which said the couple’s legal names are Sally and Timothy Walker, also reported that they misrepresented how they lost their home.
According to the 2018 memoir, the couple lost their house due to a bad business investment.
On her website, Winn wrote on Wednesday that it had been incredibly hard to remain silent, which she had to do while waiting to receive legal advice, but insisted the article was “grotesquely unfair, highly misleading and seeks to systematically pick apart my life”.
She also posted NHS letters about Timothy Walker, showing he was treated for CBD, also termed corticobasal syndrome (CBS).
“I have charted Moth’s condition with such a level of honesty that this is the most unbearable of the allegations,” she wrote.
She explained the name differences by saying she had long been known as Raynor because she disliked her name Sally Ann, and Moth was simply short for Timothy.
She also took issue with the newspaper’s account of embezzlement allegations, their property in France and their debts, saying the people in the Observer article and her book were not the same, and that the dispute referred to in the article did not lead to their losing their home.
“The journey held within those pages is one of salt and weather, of pain and possibility. And I can’t allow any more doubt to be cast on the validity of those memories, or the joy they have given so many,” she wrote.
Publishing house Penguin said it had undertaken “all the necessary pre-publication due diligence”, including a contract with an author warranty about factual accuracy, and a legal read.
It added: “Prior to the Observer enquiry, we had not received any concerns about the book’s content.”
