Refunds have been handed to some The Salt Path fans after author Raynor Winn pulled out of a tour following allegations that parts of the best-selling memoir had been embellished.
Winn was due to be in Shrewsbury on Friday (11 July) on the Saltlines tour, a “prose and music collaboration” concept running since 2022, in which the author recites words alongside a live performance from the folk group Gigspanner Big Band.
But Winn has withdrawn from live appearances following a report published by The Observer, which alleged the author made a series of inaccurate claims in the 2018 bestselling book.
The report claimed there were inconsistencies around the financial dispute outlined in the story, as well as the veracity of her husband Moth’s corticobasal degeneration (CBD) diagnosis, a rare and incurable neurological condition said to be both degenerative and terminal.
Gigspanner Big Band, whose members have been touring with the author, said in a statement that their performances would go ahead without Winn, and that they would instead play songs from their new album.
The Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury confirmed some refunds had been issued to customers, but the “vast majority of the audience have chosen to retain their tickets”, a spokesperson told the BBC.
It is believed that shows in Liverpool, Nottingham, Norwich and Chipping Campden will go ahead with the Gigspanner Big Band playing live. An event at the Waterside in Sale, Greater Manchester, has been cancelled.
The Salt Path follows the story of Winn and her husband Moth as they embark on a 630-mile trek along the South West Coast Path after their home is repossessed and Moth receives a medical diagnosis.
It was a publishing hit, selling 2 million copies and spawning two sequels – The Wild Silence (2020) and Landlines (2022) – as well as a film adaptation starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs.
The accuracy of Winn’s story has since been disputed, with the investigation casting doubt over the viability of the illness described. Winn has insisted that reports are “misleading”.
The couple have since been dropped by charity PSPA (in support of people living with progressive supranuclear palsy and corticobasal degeneration), who said they were “shocked and disappointed” by the allegations.
The book’s publishers, Penguin, have said that they carried out due diligence in fact-checking the memoir and had not received any concerns about the book’s content prior to The Observer’s investigation.
In the report, it is claimed that Raynor and Moth Winn’s real names are Sally and Tim Walker.
Raynor was also accused of stealing £64,000 from a former employer in 2008, which she reportedly attempted to repay after taking out a loan from a relative.
They allegedly accrued over £100,000 in debt to a relative, which was secured against their home, a farmhouse in the Welsh countryside that was eventually repossessed. The report suggested the couple owned land in France at the time of their walk.
Winn has said in a statement that the days since The Observer newspaper published their investigation were the “hardest” of her life, calling the accusations that her husband made up his illness “heartbreaking”.
Writing on her website on Wednesday night (9 July), Winn said she was “truly sorry” for “mistakes” made while working with her former employer, Martin Hemmings, “in the years before the economic crash of 2008”.
“For me, it was a pressured time. It was also a time when mistakes were being made in the business,” she wrote. “Any mistakes I made during the years in that office, I deeply regret and I am truly sorry.” Winn gave no further details about the allegations of theft.
Winn said that the dispute involving Hemmings is not the court case referred to in The Salt Path and it was not the reason they lost their home.
She called the allegations over Moth’s CBS diagnosis “the most heartbreaking” of all.
She shared photographs of redacted clinic letters, addressed to Timothy Walker, that appear to show that he is “treated for CBD/S and has been for many years”.
In one letter, dated 2015, a consultant neurologist wrote that Moth could be “very mildly” affected by the condition, with a separate consultant neurologist in another letter describing his case as “unusual”.
“The clinical course in this case has been so atypical that we shouldn’t discount any possibility. His clinical story has been unique,” the doctor wrote.
Alongside the photos, Winn added: “As I’ve explained many times in my books, we will always be grateful that Moth’s version of CBS is indolent, its slow progression has allowed us time to discover how walking helps him. Others aren’t so lucky.”
Producers of The Salt Path film, released in the UK only weeks ago, have said they had no knowledge of the concerns.
