Latest news with #RaynorWinn
Telegraph
2 days ago
- Telegraph
‘Salt Path author stole £64,000 from my father – the truth needs to be told'
A woman who claimed the author of The Salt Path stole £64,000 from her parent's business has said 'the truth needs to be told'. Debbie Adams and her mother Ros Hemmings alleged Raynor Winn stole about £64,000 while working for the family's property business. It is one of several allegations that have cast doubt on the accuracy of Winn's best-selling memoir. The Salt Path, which tells the story of the author and her husband, Moth, walking the 630-mile coastal path, claimed the couple made the trek after losing their home in north Wales following a poor investment in a friend's business. However, an investigation by The Observer claimed she actually lost the property after stealing from her former employers, the Hemmings family. The alleged theft is said to have occurred while she worked part-time as a bookkeeper for the family's estate agency and property surveyor in Pwllheli, north Wales, from the early 2000s. Winn has called The Observer report 'highly misleading' but admitted she 'deeply regrets' certain 'mistakes' in her past. In her first public comments, Ms Adams, 46, described how the alleged theft affected her father, Martin Hemmings, who died in 2012. She recalled getting a phone call from him, when she was aged about 29, in which he told her that money was missing from the business's accounts. She told the BBC: 'I had a phone call from dad saying he was worried about the business. [He said] 'I don't know what's gone wrong, there's no money in the account, I don't know what to do.' 'He said: 'I just don't know what's gone wrong, I'm working every hour God gives me and there's no money'. 'About five days later he rings up and goes, she [Winn] has been nicking money. I was like, 'dad come on now, no. Surely there's something gone wrong?' He said 'no, we've had a look and there's money missing'.' It is claimed that Mr Hemmings had noticed Winn failing to deposit a large sum of money in 2008, prompting him to conduct an audit and find that around £9,000 was missing from the previous few months. Winn is said to have paid him back after arriving at the couple's house with a cheque for £9,000. However, after revisiting years of the business's financial paperwork, Mr Hemmings allegedly discovered she had stolen £64,000. It has been claimed that, to avoid criminal prosecution, Winn allegedly borrowed £100,000, secured against their house, and repaid the money to the couple. This loan was later called in and their house was repossessed, it has been claimed. The Hemmings family have said they were left frustrated by Winn's subsequent rise to fame. The Salt Path spent nearly two years on The Sunday Times bestseller list after it was published in 2018, and its film adaptation, starring Jason Isaacs and Gillian Anderson, was released in May. Ms Adams said: 'I don't wish ill of them. I just wish that they would tell the truth, and the truth needs to be told.' Her mother, who has not read the book, added: 'I'd have stamped on the book I think. Just to gloss over why they ran out of money to me was shocking.' Winn has issued a lengthy statement responding to the claims and said she was receiving legal advice. She wrote: 'I worked for 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. 'Any mistakes I made during the years in that office, I deeply regret, and I am truly sorry. 'Mr Hemmings made an allegation against me to the police, accusing me of taking money from the company. I was questioned, I was not charged, nor did I face criminal sanctions. 'I reached a settlement with Martin Hemmings because I did not have the evidence required to support what happened. The terms of the settlement were willingly agreed by both parties.' The Observer report also claimed that Winn and her husband owned a house in France and their real names are Sally and Tim Walker. It also suggested that Moth did not suffer from corticobasal degeneration (CBD), which is central to the events in the memoir.
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Daily Mail
'Salt Path author destroyed my husband's confidence in people': Widow hits out at best-selling writer who she says stole £64,000 from family business
A widow who claims The Salt Path author Raynor Winn stole thousands of pounds from her family business has said that it destroyed her late husband's confidence in people. Ros Hemmings and her daughter Debbie have spoken out about Ms Winn, who worked for their property business in the early 2000s as a bookkeeper. They claim she stole around £64,000 from the family business. Ms Winn rose to fame in 2018 after her book The Salt Path became a bestseller - telling the story of a couple who decide to walk the 630-mile South West Coast Path after losing their home in following a business deal. The success of the book led to a film being created, starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs. However earlier this month an investigation by The Observer suggested Winn's story about her life in The Salt Path was misleading. The Observer claimed that Raynor and her husband Moth Winn, real names Sally and Tim Walker, lost their money after failing to pay money they had been accused of stealing from Martin Hemmings, husband of Ros. In an interview with BBC News, Ms Hemmings said she was speaking out to give a voice to her late husband She said: 'I can't forgive her for sort of destroying my husband's confidence in people, because it did. Mr Hemmings died in 2012, having worked as an estate agent and property surveyor. Mrs Hemmings became friends with Mr Winn when the pair worked together in the 1990s. In 2001, Mr Winn mentioned his wife had lost her job as a bookkeeper at a hotel and Mrs Hemmings suggested to her husband to hire Raynor for their business. However, a year later the couple noticed that they were no longer 'making any money'. Their daughter Debbie who was 29 at the time, became emotional as she remembered receiving a distressed call from her father as the financial pressure built over a number of years. 'He said: 'I just don't know what's gone wrong, I'm working every hour God gives me and there's no money,'' said Debbie Adams, now 46. Mr Hemmings visited a bank manager who showed him that between £6,000 and £9,000 was missing. He then went to the police and a local solicitor. Ms Winn then visited them at their home with a cheque for £9,000, allegedly telling them 'it was all the money I have'. Mr Hemmings was advised to take the money by police who said it may be all he would be able to get back. They were also told to check the accounts to see if any more was missing. Mrs Hemmings said: 'It was a very upsetting thing to do and it took us weeks and weeks, but we found she had taken about £64,000.' Some weeks later Mrs Hemmings said they recieved a letter from a solicitor in London offering to pay back the money and legal fees totalling around £90,000. The offer included an agreement not to press criminal charges against Raynor Winn. Mrs Hemmings said her husband signed the agreement, not wanting to put a mother through a criminal trial. Mrs Hemmings said: 'The mistake was that we ever employed her, and the biggest mistake my husband made, because obviously I'd recommended her in a way, was that he trusted her.' 'I did not think there was any reason for this aside from the fact that Martin was rubbish at sending out bills.' In a statement following The Observer investigation, Raynor Winn said: 'The dispute with Martin Hemmings, referred to in the Observer by his wife, is not the court case in The Salt Path. 'Nor did it result in us losing our home. Mr Hemmings is not Cooper. Mrs Hemmings is not in the book, nor is she a relative of someone who is. 'I worked for 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. Any mistakes I made during the years in that office, I deeply regret, and I am truly sorry.' Mrs Hemmings said she had not read The Salt Path, which sold more than two million copies, because she felt it would not reflect her view on why the couple embarked on their walk. Speaking to the MailOnline from her remote Welsh cottage last week, Debbie said: 'He felt he was ripped off by her, which he was. 'My mum is still angry and frustrated by it as my dad was upset about it. 'He felt really let down by it all. 'But I don't feel angry any more as I have parked it. 'But I'm not sure my mum has.' A close friend of her mother Ros Hemmings told MailOnline that she and her late husband were 'saddened and very frustrated' that Winn - real name Sally Walker - had escaped any punishment for her alleged theft. On the other hand, at least they got the money back, said the friend. 'If things had gone differently, and Walker had not been able to come up with the money then she may have been prosecuted, probably would not have gone to jail and ended up doing community service. 'Then she'd have been repaying their money at some paltry rate such as £5 a week for the rest of her life. 'So although it wasn't a perfect solution, it was probably better than the alternative.'
New Statesman
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- New Statesman
The Salt Path and the sins of memoir
Photo by Steve Tanner/Black Bear It is not, to put it mildly, a good look. At a time when household finances are stretched and the government is cutting benefits for the sick and disabled, author Raynor Winn stands accused of exaggerating her husband's illness and misrepresenting the circumstances of their destitution in her 2019 memoir The Salt Path – and getting rich via book sales and film rights in the process. Cue fury from betrayed readers (and, undoubtedly, a few jealous writers) on X, and a spate of solemn op-eds on the line between fact and fiction. As the author of a memoir myself, I admit the story left me unscandalised. Yes, the allegations, if accurate, make a mockery of The Salt Path's claim to be nonfiction. But to tell you the truth – and would I, dear reader, do anything else? – I've come to have low expectations of the average memoir. The genre defined by fidelity to the facts is, on average, a poor guide to deeper truths about human beings. If you want to understand people, you're better off reading fiction. To be sure, few books beat a brilliant memoir. The best – Primo Levi's Auschwitz testimony If This Is a Man, James Baldwin's searing race chronicle Notes of a Native Son, Annie Ernaux's spare sociological masterpieces – combine the artistry of a great novel with the electric frisson of self-exposure. But for every thrilling confession by a Thomas De Quincey or a Tove Ditlevsen, there are countless frauds and duds. Naturally, the frauds get the headlines. Winn joins a long and ignoble list of autobiographers accused of deception. The canonical modern example is James Frey, unmasked on Oprah after fabricating parts of his addiction memoir A Million Little Pieces (and recently profiled by the New York Times, unrepentantly recalling the scandal from a house full of Matisses and Picassos bought with his royalties). Before Frey came Binjamin Wilkormiski, author of a feted Holocaust memoir who turned out to be neither a survivor nor Jewish. Wilkormiski was defended by fellow 'survivor' Laura Grabowski, who swore she remembered him from Birkenau – until it transpired she was in fact Laurel Wilson, author of her own hoax memoir of ritual abuse, Satan's Underground. But frauds are much rarer than duds. Since the 'memoir boom' of the late Eighties and Nineties – led by superb originals like Mary Karr's The Liar's Club and Frank McCourt's Angela's Ashes – the demand for truly revelatory personal narrative has outstripped supply. A deluge of mediocrity has filled the gap. The journalist Will Storr recently detailed how AI has already perfected the bland tone and nebulous detail that makes for a viral Substack confessional. So much for the hope – floated by David Shields in his manifesto Reality Hunger – that autobiography might offer an answer to the artifice of modern life. Of course, in all literary forms the dross outweighs the gold. But the paradox of memoir is that the form premised on truth is usually so poor at delivering it. That's because we are, on the whole, thoroughly unreliable narrators of our own lives. One problem lies with the fallibility of memory. It isn't just that we repress unbearable truths, as Freud taught. Psychologists have shown how memory is itself a storyteller, weaving together experience, imagination, beliefs and memories of memories into a plausible version of what might have happened – and then selling it to us as the truth. Even if memory were trustworthy, a host of factors militate against truthful autobiography. The story of your life is the story of your most important relationships. And a good story, as every creative writing teacher knows, requires conflict and moral nuance. To tell your life story, you have to reveal unflattering things about the people you love: parents, lovers, siblings. Few have the stomach for that. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Nor are most people willing to write unflatteringly about themselves. When I tell people I've written a memoir, they sometimes tell me about some episode from their own life they'd like to write about. These stories are often fascinating – but not always for the reasons their tellers think. Often the most interesting parts are the ones they're unwilling or unable to see. People want to tell their life story with all the moral and psychological nuance stripped out, leaving them as virtuous victims or heroic survivors (or, seemingly in Winn's case, both). All good memoirs find solutions to these problems. A certain ruthlessness with the feelings of others can help: I admire the cold honesty of Rachel Cusk's memoir of motherhood A Life's Work, even as I wince for her children. Some depend on a kind of masochistic self-exposure: see Karl Ove Knausgaard. Another solution is to be French. Their less censorious literary culture than ours licences greater self-disclosure, producing the Nobel-winning Ernaux as well as the undeniably narcissistic but peerless Emmanuel Carrère. It can help if you've already cut ties with family members before you write about them. One reason many classic memoirs – like Jeanette Winterson's Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal? – are about escaping religious upbringings is that their authors are relatively free from the usual ties of filial loyalty. Or you can wait until the people you're writing about are dead, as Edmund Gosse did before writing his immortal account of childhood Father and Son. Some of my favourite memoirs find creative formal ways of engaging with the slipperiness of self-narration. In Night of the Gun David Carr applies the methods of investigative journalism to reconstruct his own past as a crack addict. Lauren Slater's Lying: A Metaphorical Memoir is a stunning Nabokovian experiment that recounts the author's struggle with a rare variant of epilepsy characterised by compulsive fabulism. But successful memoirs are exceptions. We're much better at seeing through other people's hypocrisies and contradictions than our own. That insight underpins the narrative revolution pioneered by Jane Austen: the blending of a character's innocent perspective with the author's more knowing one. If Elizabeth Bennett had written her own story, it would be a banal tissue of vanity and delusion. But when Austen told it, she invented 'free indirect speech' – and the modern novel. The messy truth behind the Salt Path may well turn out to be neither Winn's inspiring redemption story nor the cynical fraud imagined by her online critics. Perhaps it's something more interesting: a case of two people backed into a corner by bad luck and terrible decisions, who stumbled onto a slightly too perfect escape – and found themselves trapped in their own distortions once it succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Whatever actually happened, it would make a gripping story. Just don't expect Raynor Winn to be the person to tell it. [See also: The Salt Path is Scientology for the middle classes] Related
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'Trusting The Salt Path author was our biggest mistake'
A family who claim The Salt Path author Raynor Winn stole tens of thousands of pounds from their business say trusting her was their "biggest mistake". Ros Hemmings and her daughter Debbie, from Pwllheli in Gwynedd, allege Ms Winn - who worked for their property business in the early 2000s - stole around £64,000. It comes after an investigation by The Observer contained claims Ms Winn gave misleading information about her life story in her book The Salt Path, which has been made into a film starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs. Ms Winn has called The Observer report "highly misleading" and disputed many of its claims. Refunds as The Salt Path author pulls out of tour The Salt Path author defends herself against claims she misled readers The Salt Path author's next book delayed after 'distress' The 2018 book The Salt Path, and its recent film adaptation, tells the story of a couple who decide to walk the 630-mile South West Coast Path after their home was repossessed following a bad business deal. But The Observer claimed Ms Winn - whose legal name is Sally Walker - and her husband, Moth Winn, had lost their home after she took out a loan to repay money she had been accused of stealing from her previous employer, Martin Hemmings. In a statement issued earlier in July, Ms Winn stood by the book's description of how they came to lose their house saying the dispute with the Hemmings did not result in her and her husband losing their home. Martin Hemmings, who died in 2012, was an estate agent and property surveyor from north Wales, and husband to Ros Hemmings. Mrs Hemmings, 74, became friends with Mr Winn when they worked at the same National Trust site in the 1990s. "I got on extremely well with him," said Mrs Hemmings. "He seemed a really nice person." Then in 2001, Mr Winn mentioned his wife had lost her job at a hotel as a bookkeeper. "It coincided with my husband's bookkeeper retiring so I suggested her to my husband," said Mrs Hemmings. "She came for an interview, and she was the one. She seemed very efficient, we liked her." But she said after that her husband noticed a change in the business. "Within a year or so we weren't making any money," said Mrs Hemmings. Initially they did not suspect anything. "I did not think there was any reason for this aside from the fact that Martin was rubbish at sending out bills," said Mrs Hemmings. But their daughter Debbie, who was aged around 29 at the time, became emotional as she remembered receiving a distressed call from her father as the financial pressure built over a number of years. "He said: 'I just don't know what's gone wrong, I'm working every hour God gives me and there's no money,'" said Debbie Adams, now aged 46. "About five days after that first call he rings up and goes, she [Winn] has been nicking money. I was like, 'dad come on now, no. Surely there's something gone wrong?' He said 'no, we've had a look and there's money missing'." They claimed a meeting between Mr Hemmings and the bank manager showed £6,000 to £9,000 was missing. They said Mr Hemmings then went straight to the police and a local solicitor. They said shortly afterwards, Ms Winn visited them at their home. "She was crying," said Mrs Hemmings. "She had brought a cheque I think it was for £9,000. She said this is all the money I have, I've had to sell some of my mother's things to do this, can we call it quits?" Mrs Hemmings said her husband took the money on the advice of the police who said: "It may be all you get." But they also advised the couple to start going back through the accounts to check if anything else was missing. She said they went back through years of the business's financial paperwork. "It was a very upsetting thing to do and it took us weeks and weeks," said Mrs Hemmings. "But we found she had taken about £64,000." Mrs Hemmings said a few weeks later they received a letter from a solicitor in London offering to pay the money back and legal fees which came to around £90,000. It included an agreement not to pursue criminal charges which Mr Hemmings signed. Mrs Hemmings said: "He was keen to do it in a way, we had no money and had nearly been basically bankrupt. She also had young children, and to have a mother in prison or facing a criminal charge, he didn't want that to happen." In a statement released in July after the Observer article, which included allegations from Mrs Hemmings, Ms Winn acknowledged making "mistakes" earlier in her career. She said it had been a pressured time, and although she was questioned by police, she was not charged. "Any mistakes I made during the years in that office, I deeply regret, and I am truly sorry," she said. Ms Winn said the case had been settled between her and her ex-employer on a "non-admissions basis", because she "did not have the evidence required to support what happened". She said: "Mr Hemmings was as keen to reach a private resolution as I was." BBC Wales put Ms Winn's statement to Mrs Hemmings. She responded: "I think she's just trying to put the best spin on the question. "The mistake was that we ever employed her, and the biggest mistake my husband made, because obviously I'd recommended her in a way, was that he trusted her." The Salt Path has sold more than two million copies since its publication, and Ms Winn has written two sequels, The Wild Silence and Landlines, which also focus on themes of nature, wild camping, homelessness and walking. Mrs Hemmings said she had not read The Salt Path because she did not feel it would reflect her view on why the couple did the walk. She added: "I'd have stamped on the book I think. Just to gloss over why they ran out of money to me was shocking." Her daughter Debbie said: "I don't wish ill of them. I just wish that they would tell the truth, and the truth needs to be told." In her statement in July, Ms Winn said: "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." Ros and Debbie said they had no paperwork or contract from the time to back up their claims - although others, like their solicitor involved in the case, Michael Strain, have corroborated their claims as part of The Observer's investigation. Mrs Hemmings said she was speaking out now to give "a voice" to her late husband. "I can't forgive her for sort of destroying my husband's confidence in people, because it did," she said. "And I think that's partly why we didn't talk about it. He was so embarrassed that this had happened to his business." North Wales Police said they were unable to confirm or deny any details regarding Ms Winn. When approached for comment, Ms Winn's spokesman referred BBC News to the statement Ms Winn made on 9 July. He added: "She is very grateful for all the kind messages of support she has received from readers." Penguin says it did 'all necessary due diligence' with The Salt Path The Salt Path author's next book delayed after 'distress' Raynor Winn hits back at claims she misled readers
BBC News
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- BBC News
The Salt Path: 'Trusting Raynor Winn was our biggest mistake'
A family who claim The Salt Path author Raynor Winn stole tens of thousands of pounds from their business say trusting her was their "biggest mistake".Ros Hemmings and her daughter Debbie, from Pwllheli in Gwynedd, allege Ms Winn - who worked for their property business in the early 2000s - stole around £64, comes after an investigation by The Observer contained claims Ms Winn gave misleading information about her life story in her book The Salt Path, which has been made into a film starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Winn has called The Observer report "highly misleading" and disputed many of its claims. The 2018 book The Salt Path, and its recent film adaptation, tells the story of a couple who decide to walk the 630-mile South West Coast Path after their home was repossessed following a bad business The Observer claimed Ms Winn - whose legal name is Sally Walker - and her husband, Moth Winn, had lost their home after she took out a loan to repay money she had been accused of stealing from her previous employer, Martin a statement issued earlier in July, Ms Winn stood by the book's description of how they came to lose their house saying the dispute with the Hemmings did not result in her and her husband losing their home. Martin Hemmings, who died in 2012, was an estate agent and property surveyor from north Wales, and husband to Ros Hemmings, 74, became friends with Mr Winn when they worked at the same National Trust site in the 1990s."I got on extremely well with him," said Mrs Hemmings. "He seemed a really nice person."Then in 2001, Mr Winn mentioned his wife had lost her job at a hotel as a bookkeeper."It coincided with my husband's bookkeeper retiring so I suggested her to my husband," said Mrs Hemmings."She came for an interview, and she was the one. She seemed very efficient, we liked her."But she said after that her husband noticed a change in the business."Within a year or so we weren't making any money," said Mrs Hemmings. Initially they did not suspect anything."I did not think there was any reason for this aside from the fact that Martin was rubbish at sending out bills," said Mrs their daughter Debbie, who was aged around 29 at the time, became emotional as she remembered receiving a distressed call from her father as the financial pressure built over a number of years."He said: 'I just don't know what's gone wrong, I'm working every hour God gives me and there's no money,'" said Debbie Adams, now aged 46."About five days after that first call he rings up and goes, she [Winn] has been nicking money. I was like, 'dad come on now, no. Surely there's something gone wrong?' He said 'no, we've had a look and there's money missing'."They claimed a meeting between Mr Hemmings and the bank manager showed £6,000 to £9,000 was missing. They said Mr Hemmings then went straight to the police and a local solicitor. They said shortly afterwards, Ms Winn visited them at their home."She was crying," said Mrs Hemmings. "She had brought a cheque I think it was for £9,000. She said this is all the money I have, I've had to sell some of my mother's things to do this, can we call it quits?"Mrs Hemmings said her husband took the money on the advice of the police who said: "It may be all you get."But they also advised the couple to start going back through the accounts to check if anything else was said they went back through years of the business's financial paperwork."It was a very upsetting thing to do and it took us weeks and weeks," said Mrs Hemmings. "But we found she had taken about £64,000."Mrs Hemmings said a few weeks later they received a letter from a solicitor in London offering to pay the money back and legal fees which came to around £90, included an agreement not to pursue criminal charges which Mr Hemmings Hemmings said: "He was keen to do it in a way, we had no money and had nearly been basically bankrupt. She also had young children, and to have a mother in prison or facing a criminal charge, he didn't want that to happen." In a statement released in July after the Observer article, which included allegations from Mrs Hemmings, Ms Winn acknowledged making "mistakes" earlier in her said it had been a pressured time, and although she was questioned by police, she was not charged."Any mistakes I made during the years in that office, I deeply regret, and I am truly sorry," she Winn said the case had been settled between her and her ex-employer on a "non-admissions basis", because she "did not have the evidence required to support what happened".She said: "Mr Hemmings was as keen to reach a private resolution as I was."BBC Wales put Ms Winn's statement to Mrs responded: "I think she's just trying to put the best spin on the question."The mistake was that we ever employed her, and the biggest mistake my husband made, because obviously I'd recommended her in a way, was that he trusted her."The Salt Path has sold more than two million copies since its publication, and Ms Winn has written two sequels, The Wild Silence and Landlines, which also focus on themes of nature, wild camping, homelessness and Hemmings said she had not read The Salt Path because she did not feel it would reflect her view on why the couple did the added: "I'd have stamped on the book I think. Just to gloss over why they ran out of money to me was shocking."Her daughter Debbie said: "I don't wish ill of them. I just wish that they would tell the truth, and the truth needs to be told." In her statement in July, Ms Winn said: "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."Ros and Debbie said they had no paperwork or contract from the time to back up their claims - although others, like their solicitor involved in the case, Michael Strain, have corroborated their claims as part of The Observer's Hemmings said she was speaking out now to give "a voice" to her late husband."I can't forgive her for sort of destroying my husband's confidence in people, because it did," she said."And I think that's partly why we didn't talk about it. He was so embarrassed that this had happened to his business."North Wales Police said they were unable to confirm or deny any details regarding Ms approached for comment, Ms Winn's spokesman referred BBC News to the statement Ms Winn made on 9 added: "She is very grateful for all the kind messages of support she has received from readers."
