Radio Review
Private Passions
BBC Radio 3
RAYNOR Winn is a writer whose first book, The Salt Path, struck a note with thousands of readers.
It told the true story of how she and her husband, Moth, lost their home, their farm and their livelihood at the same time as he was diagnosed with a terminal illness and they had little money.
They decided to walk the South West Coastal Path – living from day to day, just putting one foot in front of the other, sleeping in a tent.
The story of their rough tough times, Moth’s suffering and how, with daily walking, he began to recover became her novel, The Salt Path – a bestseller.
Raynor Winn is just that blend of resilience and liveliness and delighted interest and slight zaniness that I had imagined. She met hard times with a stout heart and true courage.
She talked of growing up on a tenanted farm, how her father made a point of walking the land, walking among the animals, not driving a car, and of how she remembers the skylarks flying up from the meadows at her feet.
Raynor talked about first seeing Moth – she spotted him dipping a Mars bar into a cup of tea and she caught his eye; she knew he was the one.
She knew he was the one again when they went on a first date to a traditional English folk music event and he danced wearing a pair of plastic antlers and waving handkerchiefs. Sounds mad but listen to the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance and you will understand.
Theirs was an alternative lifestyle, their farm in Wales a dream but with its own exigences – you learned every trade from electrician to roofer – but it was a happy time when they raised their children.
And when the walls came crumbling, then they put one foot in front of the other and walked and walked.
Raynor has written a sequel to The Salt Path and how they ended up in an apartment in Cornwall. She’d be sleeping with a roof over her head for the first time in a long time, only she couldn’t sleep... not until she got out their tent and put it up in the bedroom, then she slept like a baby.
There was so much to wonder at and admire here – and then there was the beautiful music.
