Latest news with #MothWalker
Times
18 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Times
The Salt Path couple's house is crumbling like their reputation
In Le Village du Dropt in the southern French countryside 60 miles from Bordeaux, surrounded by fields of unharvested sweetcorn, stands a grey stone house almost reduced to rubble. The ruin became the subject of international intrigue last weekend following an excoriating investigation into an unlikely subject: a memoir of loss, illness and hope. The Observer claimed that the international bestseller The Salt Path was 'spun from lies, deceit and desperation'. Raynor Winn's debut tells how she and her husband, Moth — their real names are Sally and Timothy Walker — embarked on a 630-mile walk along the South West Coast Path after becoming homeless and almost penniless when their 17th-century 'forever home' in north Wales was repossessed. Their desperate circumstances were compounded when Moth received a debilitating diagnosis, but the harsh winds and salt spray on the footpath from Somerset to Dorset eased his symptoms. After the book was published, and again after the eponymous film starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs was released six weeks ago, the couple received an outpouring of adoration and support. Now they are mired in controversy centring on claims that Winn embezzled £64,000 from a former boss, Martin Hemmings, who died in 2012. Hemmings reported the missing money to police and Winn was arrested and questioned but not charged. The newspaper's investigation also cast doubt over the nature of her husband's rare neurological condition, corticobasal degeneration (CBD). It also referred to the Le Village du Dropt property, pointing out that the Walkers owned it despite being penniless. The report said that local French officials, and letters sent to the couple's former home, suggested they owed tax on the property. On Wednesday, Winn, 63, published an impassioned 2,300-word statement rebutting the majority of the claims, describing the report as 'highly misleading'. Following questions about its description of the book as 'unflinchingly honest', Winn's publisher, Penguin, said it 'undertook all the necessary due diligence' and it had a contract regarding factual accuracy. On Friday, it announced the publication of her fourth book, On Winter Hill, had been delayed because the allegations caused her and her husband 'considerable distress'. While fans around the world picked over the claims and split into loyalists and refund-demanding defectors, the seven residents of Le Village du Dropt were bemused to find their tiny world featured in the exposé. They are usually outnumbered by the animal population of the village — three geese, two donkeys and at least four dogs, including an inquisitive tricolour Bernese mountain dog. This week, they have been more than outnumbered by British journalists searching for answers about a woman who has become one of the country's best-known authors. Among the residents is Sean Morley, 40, who is originally from Brighton and bought the property next door to the Walkers seven years ago when he decided to trade cloudy English weather for the French sun. Morley, a chef who works in the town of Eymet and said he had never read The Salt Path and did not plan on doing so, said that interest in his neighbours preceded the Observer investigation. 'Every year, the mayor comes round and asks me if the owners of the building have returned. Everyone's been trying to find them because everyone wants to buy the house,' Morley said. The mayor of the commune Pardaillan, in which Le Village du Dropt is located, declined an interview. The Walkers' presence in the area began in the early 2000s when Moth's brother, an author who lives in a chateau in the south of France, bought a rectangular chimneyed pigeonnier, or dovecote — buildings that were used historically to attract pigeons and doves as a source of meat for wealthy farmers. In 2007, Moth bought the house on the land adjoining the pigeonnier, which used to be the home of the village notary. He paid for it 'by remortgaging our home, to prevent a developer buying it', Winn said. The setting of rolling hills and sweetcorn fields has drawn artists and authors from around Europe, including the late Oscar-winning French film-maker Marguerite Duras, Morley said. It is not known how much the couple paid for the property, but Morley estimates it is worth as little as €20,000, based on recent house sales in the area. 'That will be cheap as chips to buy now, but it's not worth a penny unless you invest to do it up,' he said. The wall of what might have been a living room or kitchen is a gaping hole trestled by vines. Bricks that used to belong to the roof overhead are scattered across the broken floor. Overgrown thorn bushes crowd collapsed stone steps leading to the entrance of the property. In Winn's words, it is an 'uninhabitable ruin in a bramble patch'. The author said: 'We have never lived there, that would be impossible, and we haven't been there since 2007. The insinuation that we were not homeless, the central premise of the book, is utterly unfounded. 'We did try to sell the land after the economic crash in 2013, but the local agent said it was virtually worthless and saw no point in marketing it.' While in its present state it is an eyesore, Morley, an architecture enthusiast, speculates that the Walkers' property may once have belonged in a medieval bastide because the semicircle archway at the front of the property is reminiscent of 14th-century designs. As Morley spoke from his end of the village, Jean-François Benezech, a retired construction expert and father of four, took a leisurely one-minute stroll from his home at the other end. Benezech previously considered making an offer on both of the Walkers' properties. 'I would like someone to buy the land and knock it down to stop it blocking my view,' he said. He invested €80,000 renovating the chateau he inherited from his parents 60 years ago and suggested it would cost at least €50,000 to renovate the Walkers' house. The story, as told by the villagers, is that the Walker brothers were planning to develop the properties but poor construction work by the builders they hired quickly put them off and they abandoned the project. Jean-Paul Ade, 64, who lives opposite Benezech, remembers them staying in caravans for a short time on the site while they were first working on the property, but said the Walkers had not been back since. Moth's brother has visited a few times to conduct 'maintenance' on the pigeonnier, Ade said, most recently a decade ago. Ade has met the brother several times throughout the years. Ade's children practised English with his children. 'Through his wife, I heard that the English brother [Moth] had incurable cancer,' Ade said. 'They were friendly. I thought about buying the pigeonnaire with the idea of potentially renovating it into a guesthouse but I didn't.' Both properties have fallen into a state of serious disrepair, said Benezech. He has seen the Pardaillan town centre suffer from depopulation and says that a primary school in the area was forced to close because it didn't have enough children. The Observer claimed to have seen documents sent to the present inhabitant of the Walkers' repossessed home in Wales suggesting that they owed tax to the French authorities. Winn denied owing tax or any outstanding debts in France. None of the locals were aware of claims that tax was owed by either Walker family on the properties. Morley said the tax on his property was more than affordable, certainly for a successful author, at about €250 a year. 'If you are English and you have not paid tax for, say, ten years, they will put the house up for auction,' Benezech said, while Ade added: 'Here, [dodging] tax is what English people are famed for.' The Salt Path is 'not about every event or moment in our lives', Winn wrote in her statement, 'but rather about a capsule of time when our lives moved from a place of complete despair to a place of hope.' She added that she had sought legal advice. Responding to the allegations of embezzlement, Winn clarified that the dispute with Hemmings was not the debt-related court proceedings featured in The Salt Path narrative that resulted in the couple losing their home, which involved a business agreement with a friend of Moth's turning sour. She apologised for 'mistakes' that were made in the business during the time she worked as a bookkeeper for Hemmings. 'Any mistakes I made during the years in that office, I deeply regret, and I am truly sorry,' she said. The author attached to the statement letters purportedly sent to her husband by consultant neurologists between 2015 and 2025 referencing his prior 'CBS [corticobasal syndrome] diagnosis', while another concludes that he has 'an atypical form' of CBD. She described questions about her husband's illness as 'utterly vile'. Having just returned from hospital after an operation on his appendix, Morley is sceptical that the facts about Moth's condition matter in light of the solace readers may have found in the story of hope. With a relaxed wave of the hand typical of the residents of Le Village du Dropt, he said: 'If it helped him to recover, then good for him.'
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE The Salt Path house that controversial author claimed to have lost through no fault of her own is now an Airbnb where you can stay for £178 a night
The house at the centre of the Salt Path controversy has become an Airbnb where guests can stay for £178-a-night, MailOnline has learned. Raynor Winn, who wrote the best selling book, claims she lost the 17th century farmhouse in Pwllheli, Wales, when she and her husband Moth invested in a friend's company that failed. The couple were taken to court where a judge ruled their business associate - a man named only as Cooper - should get the house in lieu of the money they owed. In the book Winn said: 'We lost. Lost the case. Lost the house.' The Salt Path tells the story of how they became homeless after the house was repossessed which was closely followed by the discovery that Moth had the terminal condition corticobasal degeneration (CBD). Winn and Moth - real names Sally and Timothy Walker - set off on a year-long trek along the South West Coastal Path, sleeping in a tent and facing numerous ordeals along the way. But their story, made into a film starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs, has been thrown into doubt after locals in Pwllheli have a very different version of events. They claim Winn embezzled up to £64,000 from the local estate agency where she worked as a bookkeeper. They also allegedly owed the local car repair garage £800 and the new owner of the farmhouse has claimed she received unpaid bills and letters from debt collection agencies addressed to the couple. The home is now owned by Maxine Farrimond, 57, who bought the 17th century Penymaes farmhouse, five miles north of Pwllheli in 2016. The Airbnb has been profitable for Ms Farrimond who is described as a 'Superhost' on the company's website She has turned it into a profitable Airbnb and is described as a 'Superhost' on the company's website. It is booked out for most of the summer but the six-bedroom property can be rented for £1,246 for a week in September. Until now guests staying at the farmhouse had no idea of its connection to the Salt Path book which has sold over two million copies. But now fans of the book and film can book the house which was going to be Winn and Moth's 'forever home'.
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The Salt Path author defends memoir against fabrication allegations
Raynor Winn, the author of The Salt Path, has described enduring some of the 'hardest days' of her life as she defended her memoir against allegations that parts of it were fabricated. The bestselling 2018 book, which was adapted into a film starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs, tells how she and her husband, Moth, walked the 630-mile trek along the south-west coast path after losing their home. It also recounts how Moth was diagnosed with a neurological condition. But the Observer newspaper, which said the couple's legal names are Sally and Timothy Walker, reported last weekend that Winn may have misrepresented the events that led to the couple losing their home and that experts had cast doubt over Moth having corticobasal degeneration (CBD). On Wednesday, Winn posted clinic letters on Instagram addressed to Timothy Walker, which she said showed that 'he is treated for CBD/S and has been for many years'. She wrote: 'The last few days have been some of the hardest of my life. Heartbreaking accusations that Moth has made up his illness have been made, leaving us devastated.' In a statement on her website, she said that the article was 'grotesquely unfair, highly misleading and seeks to systematically pick apart my life'. Winn, 63, continued: 'The Salt Path is about what happened to Moth and me, after we lost our home and found ourselves homeless on the headlands of the south-west. 'It's not about every event or moment in our lives, but rather about a capsule of time when our lives moved from a place of complete despair to a place of hope. '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.' In The Salt Path, the couple lose their house due to a bad business investment. But the Observer reported that the couple lost their home after an accusation that Winn had stolen thousands of pounds from her employer. It also said that it had spoken to medical experts who were sceptical about Moth having CBD, given his lack of acute symptoms and his apparent ability to reverse them. Publishing house Penguin said it 'undertook 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 inquiry, we had not received any concerns about the book's content.' PSPA, a charity that supports people with CBD and Progressive Supranuclear Palsy (PSP), said it had 'terminated' its relationship with the couple after the Observer article.
