What’s the truth of The Salt Path? 

0:00Hi there, Neil Patterson here with another of our Sky News daily profiles. This time we're taking a look at the best-selling author Rainer Wynne and the claims that her books based on real life are anything but.

0:14Rainer Wynne had book deals, a film adaptation and a national tour because of her life story. Now, you can probably chuck in a couple of Netflix dramas and countless podcast series about the author of The Salt Path. The story of Rayner and her husband Moth has just had a massive plot twist of its own. Could it be, as the Observer has suggested, that the life-affirming tale of a couple who faced a devastating medical diagnosis, the loss of their savings and their home, might not be quite what it seems, with accusations of embezzlement, for one. Well, I spoke to Ray and Moth yesterday. It's just weeks after the film was released, starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs.

0:55I said, what are you hoping people get into the film? And typically for them, because they're so humble, they certainly don't want attention paid to them, although the film's about them. We've done extensive tests. All we can do is give you guidance.

1:12You should turn me back to the shop and get a different one. Don't want a different one. Well, Raynor has been strenuous in her denials. She's talked about the vitriol poured from all quarters whilst book clubs up and down the land have been taking in the accusations, starting with the fact that Rayner and Moth Wynne are actually named Sally and Tim Walker. You wonder what damage has been done to one of the most remarkable publishing stories of recent times. So let's take you through this latest chapter and we'll start with the journalist Charlotte Litton who met and interviewed Rayner. There are publishing sensations and then there's the salt path.

1:51Why did this resonate with so many people, do you think? I think the book sold itself, or was sold, as being unflinchingly honest. It was this amazing tale of triumph in the face of unbelievable adversity. This couple that lost their home, they were in their 50s. One member of the partnership had been dealing with a very severe neurodegenerative disease. And against the odds, they went on this incredible walk. It was through Britain. It was the countryside. side, it was the coast. It was all of these kind of magical, natural, wholesome elements coming together that really seemed to speak to people and show them that strength in the face of adversity is possible and you too can survive even the worst of times.

2:37Was it an overnight success or was this one of those book club word of mouth sleeper hits that slowly took over? I think the first book was a very big hit and it kind of snowballed from there. I also think timing was really key because the first book came out in 2018 and by the time of the second and third we were in the pandemic and I think those sorts of very natural books which really relied on a human tale in this kind of amazing outdoor setting really spoke to people. There are so many people who have moved to parts of the world that they traversed on their walk. And on their walks subsequent to the first book, they even say in the third book, Landlines, they talk about how on their subsequent walks, they would come across people who were talking about the salt part and talking about this couple, not realising that they were in front of them.

3:32So really, its cultural impact just snowballed. They've sold 2 million books, or Rainer's sold 2 million books. It's a huge amount, you know, publishers and authors, they really don't sell that many. And to have sold that volume, to have a fourth coming out, to have this film made starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs, it's a big deal. It shows, again, that the spread of this story really was enormous. Tell me a bit more about the film, because it does feel like almost a media empire has emerged from that first book. Quite. And I mean, to have Gillian Anderson playing you, I'm sure, is very flattering.

4:06Certainly. And Jason Isaacs, to be fair. Quite. and Raina Wynn had said a couple of months ago, I believe, that she thought Gillian Anderson was too glamorous to play her but that sort of speaks to the Hollywood quality of this tale that no actor or actress was too glamorous, that no one was too big, that no box office was too big to broach. They were always going to make this story a success because it did just get to the hearts to so many people. I mean Charlotte, you've met Raina. What were your impressions of her at that point? When we met, she was very reserved, very quiet. I found that, you know, that's fair enough.

4:46That's people's personality type. But I suppose when somebody had by that point written three memoir style books, you're kind of hoping to really feel that raw emotion, that struggle that they've been through and their reflections on life now versus then. And that felt a little more challenging when we spoke. A lot of her anecdotes were taken from the books. I didn't feel I learned a huge amount more from her while we were together. And there was certainly a shyness or an unwillingness, perhaps, to really kind of go deep and perhaps reveal some of those very difficult topics or more than we'd already seen in the books when we met.

5:29But unfortunately, you did not get the chance to meet her husband, Moth, about whom, of course, there are questions directly relating to his illness. Quite. And so originally the plan had been that I would go to the home that they were looking after. So a Saltpath fan had got in touch with them and said, could you look after my neglected cider farm? They were custodians there. So I was due to go there to meet them both. And obviously so much of the core of Wynne's books is Moth and what's happening to him, the healing power of those walks. And of course, when someone's been given a terrible diagnosis this and they seem to be surviving against the odds.

6:03You want to meet them. It's an incredible feat. But unfortunately, that then got rerouted to a third-party location. So she picked me up. We went for tea and cake, which was perfectly pleasant. But again, it felt like a little bit of a barrier that I wasn't getting that insight that I had hoped into both of their lives. OK, at this point, let's just bring in Jason Mansory, our entertainment reporter. Now, you've been looking at the back and forth, the to and fro between the allegations, the Wins, the publishing house and all the rest of it. Ultimately, what is the concern with this book? I think, first of all, the most obvious one is who are these people?

6:39The fact that we're questioning who their names are is where it begins. But on top of that, it was a very emotive story about loss and how much debt they got into. And now questions have been asked about how they got into that debt, which inevitably led to them losing their house. Now, all of this together, along with this investigation, that's making some pretty serious accusations against them has brought the whole mythology of the salt path and these two characters into question. Well, let's try and work our way through it. So we have issues around what these people are actually called. We have issues around what started them on that walk.

7:14We have issues around the husband's condition, a degenerative condition of some kind. But for the time being at least, all of these allegations remain allegations? They do. And all we can do is repeat what she has come back with and also what the investigation has found. So if we start off with something innocuous as we have, like the names, for example, she has explained the use of her married name and said that the legal names we use on our bank records, our utility bills, etc., our friends and neighbours use Sel and Tim interchangeably with Ray and Moth. There is nothing hiding in our names.

7:50Moth is short for Timothy, which of course is her husband's name. Okay, so we can pop that to the side just for a second but I suspect that of the millions of people who've enjoyed this book the thing that sticks in the craw the most is that the inspiration for it, the thing that started them off might not be true, that they were not the victims of a botched property deal. What are they saying on that? This is where it gets really, really interesting. I mean the investigation itself is accusing them of embezzlement and saying that that is the reason they ended up in so much debt. In particular, that it was while she was an employee of Martin Hemings, whose wife, Ros Hemings, is in the investigation and quoted in there, that she stole money from them and had to pay that back.

8:36And that's the situation we get into. Now, when we go into the most recent reply, she replies, but she doesn't necessarily deny. I mean, you can make what you will of these statements itself. She says it was a time when mistakes were being made in the business. Any mistakes are made during the years in that office. I deeply regret and I am truly sorry. Now, she's also admitted to being questioned by police and also said that she admittedly reached a settlement with Mr Martin Hemings because she did not have the evidence required to support what happened and the terms of the settlement were willingly agreed by both parties.

9:13Yeah, and in her statement, Raina Wynne said the case she wrote about in the book involving a friendship called Cooper was separate to what happened there. So let's go on to Moth's condition. Cortical basal degeneration, CBD, relatively rare neurological condition, kind of a bit in the Parkinson's area if you know anything about that. But it's serious, isn't it? And the allegation that it might not be entirely true, I mean, she's come about swinging, Rainer Wynn. She's talking about the emotional damage that this might have caused her. I think that is interesting how much of the statement actually goes into focus on her husband's illness.

9:48She has provided evidence, she says. I mean, there's letters from doctors, one that mentions his prior CBS diagnosis, another one that concludes he has an atypical form of CBD, the illnesses that you mentioned before. And she comes out and she says, I've charted Moss' condition with such a level of honesty that this is the most unbearable of the allegations. So that really ties into that emotional thing that you mentioned before. Yeah, but I suppose the flip side of that coin is there are people out there with CBD who have been sent copies of the salt path that might be burning them right now.

10:20Absolutely. How misled would you feel if you do have a truly degenerative neurological disease and you find out that, you know, this story may not be true? And look, I think it is worth pointing out that the PSPA, a charity that supports people with this illness, have ended their relationship with the family after the investigation came out. Jason, step back from this, right? Rayner's denial, the lengthy statements and the stuff that she has put out into the public domain. It strikes me that, yes, whilst it does address the top lines, as we say in journalism, the headlines that have been out there, I don't think it does much beyond that.

10:57Are we to expect that there should be more of a response from the publishers, from Rainer herself? Absolutely. I think there are so many questions that have been asked on this, and you've seen it snowball since the investigation first came out. It's kind of impossible to think and there's not going to have to be more said there. What was surprising was how long it took her to come out and say something in the first place. I think what we're seeing now is there's a lot of valuable intellectual property out there that a lot of people have a vested interest in, including Rainer Wynn, Sally Walker, but also, you know, the publishers who bought this book and these novels, these best-selling books in good faith, and the production companies that optioned it to distribute it or make it into a film.

11:39But Jason, we have been here before, And I think this is where I'm slightly struggling with this story. We have seen memoirs, in inverted commas, come out that haven't been quite as described. James Frey, A Million Little Pieces, Oprah's Book Club, Book of the Month, sold millions of copies around the world. And then we discovered what the truth was. It is interesting. So we are not at that stage right now. We have denials on this and we can't say that it's false. What we can say is in that situation, publishers had to put a publisher note at the beginning. They also had to pay out quite a significant amount of money.

12:11to people who felt that they were honestly misled before those facts came out. And I think that's the really interesting point here. We have publishing companies that have entered into a deal in good faith that this is a true and honest repotage, if you like, would be the words that we'd use in the news industry. To me, there are a lot of people that have a vested interest in good faith of this story. And if that turns out not to be the case, it'll be very interesting to see what happens and what statements we'll get from The Walkers slash The Winds.

12:44So let's go back to Charlotte. You've spoken to Raina, you've read the books, you've followed the story. Did you ever have an inkling that it might not have been quite as described? I think the difficulty is that some of the really key parts of contention here are things that happened very long ago about how she lost her home, things like that. I certainly never felt at the time that she was hiding something sinister from the past. but it is very hard to read those allegations now and look at the success of the books at the kind of gut-wrenching emotion within them and feel the same way. Let's talk the reaction to these allegations because this is a story that clearly so many people love.

13:29There is a villain at the heart of it. There's the redemptive arc. There are some florid touches when it comes to the wordage perhaps but there is a story there that people have engaged with and have loved. So I'm wondering, what have we had from publishers, the actors, anyone involved in this? Well, the publishers have said they did their due diligence. I don't believe the actors have spoken. I think right now it's an incredibly hot potato. Wynne herself didn't speak out about the investigation until several days afterwards. And so I think everyone is kind of trying to keep their powder as dry as possible.

14:03I've definitely seen a lot of people who were readers of the book express their total dismay, including people who had moved to be in Cornwall and live their life almost and felt like they'd done so on totally false pretenses. So I think more will have to come from the publishers. I'm not sure the actors will speak publicly about it, but we'll see. And just on that topic of people who've moved to Cornwall, the fans of the book, and there are millions of them, Why do you think that for so many of them, and I've seen the same social media reaction that you have, but why do you think the reaction among so many has been so visceral?

14:41I think because this memoir totally speaks to our age of authenticity. So everyone is craving that connection with someone, even if they're in the public eye. Celebrities aren't celebrities like they were before. People are approachable. It's a lady who you might live next door to who's gone on this incredible journey. and that is why it strikes people so differently and why they feel so attached to these people even if they don't know them and I think that's why the outpouring has been so grief-like because people are just devastated that it might not be true or that parts of it might be false that they have constructed their own beliefs and world and future path on what these people seemingly went through and if that's not true what does it mean for them as well as for others what though is that is the level of oversight expected by editors by publishing houses when it comes to a book that is on the face of it literally on the face of it a true story what's their due diligence i think the reality is that publishing houses are on a shoestring budget they have very little money and so for things like fact checking and especially in the world of memoir and especially when you're looking at somebody who looks sort of as wholesome as they come.

15:56It's a lady in her 50s. She was homeless. She's walking along the southwest coast path. You kind of believe what people say and you have to take a lot of it at face value. And they say that some checks were done. The publisher's penguins say they carried out all pre-publication due diligence on the book and that before the Observer claims it hadn't had any other concerns about the content of the salt path. I think there is a real headache on the publisher's hands that, you know, winners do to have a book out later this year. There was potentially another in the works and there have been, you know, been dropped by a charity she was working with over questions over her husband's health.

16:36She's pulled out of a tour that she was supposed to be performing in. So I think for now she will have to lie very low. But I think that if she is indeed correct in her refutations of the Observer investigation, if she's found to be effectively not guilty, at least in the court of public opinion, I think that there will be a second life because the story has touched so many people. The spread is so huge and I'm sure that there is still a place for what she has to offer if she can redeem herself this time. Number Nine Films said it was also unaware of any allegations until it was contacted by The Observer in early July, well after the film was produced and distributed.

17:20On Rainer Wynne's response to the claims, Sky News contacted The Observer. If we hear back, that will be in our episode notes. Do enjoy your listening and your reading this weekend. The podcast is back on Monday. Thank you.