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Win a seven-night self-catering stay for four in Devon at The Lanterns worth £2,250
Win a seven-night self-catering stay for four in Devon at The Lanterns worth £2,250

Times

time4 days ago

  • Times

Win a seven-night self-catering stay for four in Devon at The Lanterns worth £2,250

In Hope Cove, a pretty fishing village along one of the loveliest stretches of the south Devon coast, The Lanterns is a collection of 11 smart, self-catering apartments right on the South West Coast Path. Walks west will take you to South Milton Ley nature reserve, while the path east leads to Salcombe — both offering spectacular scenery at an easy pace. You could just as easily stay close by, too, and get out on the water for paddleboarding or sailing. And it's dog-friendly, so there's no need to leave your pet at home. Your prize is a seven-night stay in one of the two-bedroom apartments for up to four people and two dogs, plus a luxury goody bag. Interiors are coastal chic: oak wood flooring, a blue and white colour scheme, soft throws, patterned cushions and sea-themed artworks. An outside shower comes in handy after swimming. The apartment will be ocean-facing and have either a balcony or terrace. You'll also enjoy dinner for four at artisan pizzeria Primo in Salcombe, as well as a private rum tasting with the Devon Rum Company. The stay must be booked by April 1, 2026 and take place between October 1, 2025 and September 30, 2026, subject to availability and blackout dates (Christmas, New Year, May 22 to 30 and the month of August). You'll also need to give a minimum of a week's notice. For more information, click here. For your chance to win, simply vote in each category in this year's Times and Sunday Times Travel Awards. There are 17 categories in total. Click here to vote. For the full list of prizes, see closes at 23.59pm on August 31, 2025. Open to residents of the United Kingdom who are aged 18 years or older, excluding employees and agents of the Promoter and its group companies, or third parties directly connected with the operation or fulfilment of the Promotion and their affiliates, and their immediate families and household members. One entry per person. Winners will be selected at random from all valid entries. No cash alternative and prize is non-transferable. Winner and guest responsible for getting to and from Hope Cove at their own expense. Subject to availability, Prize must be booked by April 1, 2026. Prize must be taken between October 1, 2025 and September 30, 2026, except on the following dates: May 22 to May 30, 2026, August 2026, Christmas, New Year and Easter. Winner and his/her guests must travel on same itinerary. All parts of Prize must be used in conjunction with same booking. Travel insurance, food and drink (outside what is previously declared in the board basis), spending money and all incidental expenses are the responsibility of the Winner. Prize is subject to The Lanterns terms and conditions. Your information will be used to administer this Promotion and otherwise in accordance with our privacy policy at and those of the partners. Promoter is Times Media Ltd. Full T&Cs apply — see

Is it ever okay for a memoir to stray from the truth?
Is it ever okay for a memoir to stray from the truth?

The Advertiser

time6 days ago

  • Entertainment
  • The Advertiser

Is it ever okay for a memoir to stray from the truth?

Raynor Winn, author of bestselling memoir The Salt Path - also a film starring Gillian Anderson - has been accused of deception in her story of hardship and healing. In Winn's account, after their "forever home" is dispossessed, she and her partner, Moth (who faces a terminal diagnosis) decide to walk the famous 630-mile South West Coast Path along the dramatic cliffs of south-west England. This week, an Observer investigation cast doubt over key aspects of Winn's memoir, which has sold nearly 2 million copies worldwide. Her response? A statement through her lawyer that raises enduring questions about what it means to claim a story is the "truth": "The Salt Path lays bare the physical and spiritual journey Moth and I shared, an experience that transformed us completely and altered the course of our lives. This is the true story of our journey." Publisher Penguin Michael Joseph told The Bookseller it "undertook all the necessary pre-publication due diligence" and that "prior to the Observer enquiry, we had not received any concerns about the book's content". Number 9 Films and Shadowplay Features told the UK's Sky News their film was a "faithful adaptation" of a book. In the book, Winn claims she and her husband lost their home in North Wales after making a bad investment in a friend's business, leaving them liable for debts when it folded. The Observer report claims they lost the house after Winn defrauded her employer of about £64,000, then borrowed £100,000 (with 18 per cent interest) from a distant relative, secured against their house, to repay the money. The couple's house was reportedly repossessed after they were sued to recover the money owed. While in the book they wrote they had nowhere to go, the Observer reports that the couple "owned land in France on which they had previously stayed". The report also raised serious doubts about Moth's terminal diagnosis of corticobasal degeneration (CBD), a rare condition in the same family as Parkinson's disease. He has been living with it for 18 years, "with no visibly acute symptoms", according to the Observer, but it usually has a life expectancy of around six to eight years and the specialists the publication spoke to were "sceptical". While they still make headlines, do these scandals around fabrication have the same impact they once did, in today's era of "fake news"? And what is "truth" in memoir anyway? Of course, we've been here before - most infamously, perhaps, 20 years ago with James Frey, 1990s poster boy for literary pork pies. In 2005, key claims in his addiction memoir, A Million Little Pieces, were debunked by website The Smoking Gun, which posts legal documents, arrest records and police mugshots. Frey's US publisher, Random House, was sued by a group of readers for breach of contract and fraud. The publisher offered refunds to any reader with a receipt for buying the book. Culturally, Frey suffered a blow worse than anything financial: he was cancelled by Oprah. In last month's interview, Frey indignantly argued his book was "85 per cent true [...] as most memoirs are". His main retort, though, was more philosophical: "When Picasso makes a self-portrait, if it's not photorealist, is it invalid?" Is a true story akin to the facts? What does it matter, and to whom? In the case of A Million Little Pieces, the question was interrogated legally. To call something memoir is to make a contract with the reader around facts - and this was breached. In the case of The Salt Path, that process is still unfolding. But how exactly do we cordon off facts from embellishments? Is fact strictly tied to the observable: times, places, names, events, chronologies? Can something be true but not factual? What about feelings? Pain itself is known to be experienced in variable ways, and any hotel review will tell you one person's ultimate luxury is another's shabby hell. The task of the writer is, surely, to reflect the peculiarly specific feeling of their living. Fundamentally, memoirists always manipulate story. Memoir is not autobiography. It involves a careful selection of the parts of our life that fit together to make a narrative - and it can employ a vast spectrum of fictional techniques. Carmen Maria Machado's In the Dream House, for example, uses a disjointed narrative arc of strung-together genre tropes (like sci-fi and self-help) to tell the story of her time in an abusive relationship. Helen Garner has written about the careful act of shaping the "I" who appears in her nonfiction. "There can be no writing without the creation of a persona," she says. "In order to write intimately - in order to write at all - one has to invent an 'I'." But it is clear that for Garner, the creation of a persona is not mere invention. We know this because she has spoken, too, about the freedom fiction gives her to make things up - a freedom she no doubt embraced after criticism over her conflation of multiple people into a single person in The First Stone. Much of Frey's indignance now seems to stem from the absurdity of how low the bar has sunk when it comes to standards of truth. And he has a point. To know whether an image is counterfeit, now we have to hope it includes hands (notoriously difficult for AI to master). Ours is a world where social media, absent of checks and balances, is the only growing source of news media. A world where whole journals are compromised by the mass generation of fake science - and where we swallow wholesale the documentarian claims of "reality TV", while knowing it is scripted. In such a world, what's a little fuzziness around the exact reasons a couple found themselves without a home and walking the cliffs of Devon? The contract with a reader is an emotional one - to believe someone has lived through the story they are telling involves a different kind of investment of self: a deeper empathy, a willingness to sit with pain or joy or fear that was real for the writer. And that is worth honouring. Raynor Winn, author of bestselling memoir The Salt Path - also a film starring Gillian Anderson - has been accused of deception in her story of hardship and healing. In Winn's account, after their "forever home" is dispossessed, she and her partner, Moth (who faces a terminal diagnosis) decide to walk the famous 630-mile South West Coast Path along the dramatic cliffs of south-west England. This week, an Observer investigation cast doubt over key aspects of Winn's memoir, which has sold nearly 2 million copies worldwide. Her response? A statement through her lawyer that raises enduring questions about what it means to claim a story is the "truth": "The Salt Path lays bare the physical and spiritual journey Moth and I shared, an experience that transformed us completely and altered the course of our lives. This is the true story of our journey." Publisher Penguin Michael Joseph told The Bookseller it "undertook all the necessary pre-publication due diligence" and that "prior to the Observer enquiry, we had not received any concerns about the book's content". Number 9 Films and Shadowplay Features told the UK's Sky News their film was a "faithful adaptation" of a book. In the book, Winn claims she and her husband lost their home in North Wales after making a bad investment in a friend's business, leaving them liable for debts when it folded. The Observer report claims they lost the house after Winn defrauded her employer of about £64,000, then borrowed £100,000 (with 18 per cent interest) from a distant relative, secured against their house, to repay the money. The couple's house was reportedly repossessed after they were sued to recover the money owed. While in the book they wrote they had nowhere to go, the Observer reports that the couple "owned land in France on which they had previously stayed". The report also raised serious doubts about Moth's terminal diagnosis of corticobasal degeneration (CBD), a rare condition in the same family as Parkinson's disease. He has been living with it for 18 years, "with no visibly acute symptoms", according to the Observer, but it usually has a life expectancy of around six to eight years and the specialists the publication spoke to were "sceptical". While they still make headlines, do these scandals around fabrication have the same impact they once did, in today's era of "fake news"? And what is "truth" in memoir anyway? Of course, we've been here before - most infamously, perhaps, 20 years ago with James Frey, 1990s poster boy for literary pork pies. In 2005, key claims in his addiction memoir, A Million Little Pieces, were debunked by website The Smoking Gun, which posts legal documents, arrest records and police mugshots. Frey's US publisher, Random House, was sued by a group of readers for breach of contract and fraud. The publisher offered refunds to any reader with a receipt for buying the book. Culturally, Frey suffered a blow worse than anything financial: he was cancelled by Oprah. In last month's interview, Frey indignantly argued his book was "85 per cent true [...] as most memoirs are". His main retort, though, was more philosophical: "When Picasso makes a self-portrait, if it's not photorealist, is it invalid?" Is a true story akin to the facts? What does it matter, and to whom? In the case of A Million Little Pieces, the question was interrogated legally. To call something memoir is to make a contract with the reader around facts - and this was breached. In the case of The Salt Path, that process is still unfolding. But how exactly do we cordon off facts from embellishments? Is fact strictly tied to the observable: times, places, names, events, chronologies? Can something be true but not factual? What about feelings? Pain itself is known to be experienced in variable ways, and any hotel review will tell you one person's ultimate luxury is another's shabby hell. The task of the writer is, surely, to reflect the peculiarly specific feeling of their living. Fundamentally, memoirists always manipulate story. Memoir is not autobiography. It involves a careful selection of the parts of our life that fit together to make a narrative - and it can employ a vast spectrum of fictional techniques. Carmen Maria Machado's In the Dream House, for example, uses a disjointed narrative arc of strung-together genre tropes (like sci-fi and self-help) to tell the story of her time in an abusive relationship. Helen Garner has written about the careful act of shaping the "I" who appears in her nonfiction. "There can be no writing without the creation of a persona," she says. "In order to write intimately - in order to write at all - one has to invent an 'I'." But it is clear that for Garner, the creation of a persona is not mere invention. We know this because she has spoken, too, about the freedom fiction gives her to make things up - a freedom she no doubt embraced after criticism over her conflation of multiple people into a single person in The First Stone. Much of Frey's indignance now seems to stem from the absurdity of how low the bar has sunk when it comes to standards of truth. And he has a point. To know whether an image is counterfeit, now we have to hope it includes hands (notoriously difficult for AI to master). Ours is a world where social media, absent of checks and balances, is the only growing source of news media. A world where whole journals are compromised by the mass generation of fake science - and where we swallow wholesale the documentarian claims of "reality TV", while knowing it is scripted. In such a world, what's a little fuzziness around the exact reasons a couple found themselves without a home and walking the cliffs of Devon? The contract with a reader is an emotional one - to believe someone has lived through the story they are telling involves a different kind of investment of self: a deeper empathy, a willingness to sit with pain or joy or fear that was real for the writer. And that is worth honouring. Raynor Winn, author of bestselling memoir The Salt Path - also a film starring Gillian Anderson - has been accused of deception in her story of hardship and healing. In Winn's account, after their "forever home" is dispossessed, she and her partner, Moth (who faces a terminal diagnosis) decide to walk the famous 630-mile South West Coast Path along the dramatic cliffs of south-west England. This week, an Observer investigation cast doubt over key aspects of Winn's memoir, which has sold nearly 2 million copies worldwide. Her response? A statement through her lawyer that raises enduring questions about what it means to claim a story is the "truth": "The Salt Path lays bare the physical and spiritual journey Moth and I shared, an experience that transformed us completely and altered the course of our lives. This is the true story of our journey." Publisher Penguin Michael Joseph told The Bookseller it "undertook all the necessary pre-publication due diligence" and that "prior to the Observer enquiry, we had not received any concerns about the book's content". Number 9 Films and Shadowplay Features told the UK's Sky News their film was a "faithful adaptation" of a book. In the book, Winn claims she and her husband lost their home in North Wales after making a bad investment in a friend's business, leaving them liable for debts when it folded. The Observer report claims they lost the house after Winn defrauded her employer of about £64,000, then borrowed £100,000 (with 18 per cent interest) from a distant relative, secured against their house, to repay the money. The couple's house was reportedly repossessed after they were sued to recover the money owed. While in the book they wrote they had nowhere to go, the Observer reports that the couple "owned land in France on which they had previously stayed". The report also raised serious doubts about Moth's terminal diagnosis of corticobasal degeneration (CBD), a rare condition in the same family as Parkinson's disease. He has been living with it for 18 years, "with no visibly acute symptoms", according to the Observer, but it usually has a life expectancy of around six to eight years and the specialists the publication spoke to were "sceptical". While they still make headlines, do these scandals around fabrication have the same impact they once did, in today's era of "fake news"? And what is "truth" in memoir anyway? Of course, we've been here before - most infamously, perhaps, 20 years ago with James Frey, 1990s poster boy for literary pork pies. In 2005, key claims in his addiction memoir, A Million Little Pieces, were debunked by website The Smoking Gun, which posts legal documents, arrest records and police mugshots. Frey's US publisher, Random House, was sued by a group of readers for breach of contract and fraud. The publisher offered refunds to any reader with a receipt for buying the book. Culturally, Frey suffered a blow worse than anything financial: he was cancelled by Oprah. In last month's interview, Frey indignantly argued his book was "85 per cent true [...] as most memoirs are". His main retort, though, was more philosophical: "When Picasso makes a self-portrait, if it's not photorealist, is it invalid?" Is a true story akin to the facts? What does it matter, and to whom? In the case of A Million Little Pieces, the question was interrogated legally. To call something memoir is to make a contract with the reader around facts - and this was breached. In the case of The Salt Path, that process is still unfolding. But how exactly do we cordon off facts from embellishments? Is fact strictly tied to the observable: times, places, names, events, chronologies? Can something be true but not factual? What about feelings? Pain itself is known to be experienced in variable ways, and any hotel review will tell you one person's ultimate luxury is another's shabby hell. The task of the writer is, surely, to reflect the peculiarly specific feeling of their living. Fundamentally, memoirists always manipulate story. Memoir is not autobiography. It involves a careful selection of the parts of our life that fit together to make a narrative - and it can employ a vast spectrum of fictional techniques. Carmen Maria Machado's In the Dream House, for example, uses a disjointed narrative arc of strung-together genre tropes (like sci-fi and self-help) to tell the story of her time in an abusive relationship. Helen Garner has written about the careful act of shaping the "I" who appears in her nonfiction. "There can be no writing without the creation of a persona," she says. "In order to write intimately - in order to write at all - one has to invent an 'I'." But it is clear that for Garner, the creation of a persona is not mere invention. We know this because she has spoken, too, about the freedom fiction gives her to make things up - a freedom she no doubt embraced after criticism over her conflation of multiple people into a single person in The First Stone. Much of Frey's indignance now seems to stem from the absurdity of how low the bar has sunk when it comes to standards of truth. And he has a point. To know whether an image is counterfeit, now we have to hope it includes hands (notoriously difficult for AI to master). Ours is a world where social media, absent of checks and balances, is the only growing source of news media. A world where whole journals are compromised by the mass generation of fake science - and where we swallow wholesale the documentarian claims of "reality TV", while knowing it is scripted. In such a world, what's a little fuzziness around the exact reasons a couple found themselves without a home and walking the cliffs of Devon? The contract with a reader is an emotional one - to believe someone has lived through the story they are telling involves a different kind of investment of self: a deeper empathy, a willingness to sit with pain or joy or fear that was real for the writer. And that is worth honouring. Raynor Winn, author of bestselling memoir The Salt Path - also a film starring Gillian Anderson - has been accused of deception in her story of hardship and healing. In Winn's account, after their "forever home" is dispossessed, she and her partner, Moth (who faces a terminal diagnosis) decide to walk the famous 630-mile South West Coast Path along the dramatic cliffs of south-west England. This week, an Observer investigation cast doubt over key aspects of Winn's memoir, which has sold nearly 2 million copies worldwide. Her response? A statement through her lawyer that raises enduring questions about what it means to claim a story is the "truth": "The Salt Path lays bare the physical and spiritual journey Moth and I shared, an experience that transformed us completely and altered the course of our lives. This is the true story of our journey." Publisher Penguin Michael Joseph told The Bookseller it "undertook all the necessary pre-publication due diligence" and that "prior to the Observer enquiry, we had not received any concerns about the book's content". Number 9 Films and Shadowplay Features told the UK's Sky News their film was a "faithful adaptation" of a book. In the book, Winn claims she and her husband lost their home in North Wales after making a bad investment in a friend's business, leaving them liable for debts when it folded. The Observer report claims they lost the house after Winn defrauded her employer of about £64,000, then borrowed £100,000 (with 18 per cent interest) from a distant relative, secured against their house, to repay the money. The couple's house was reportedly repossessed after they were sued to recover the money owed. While in the book they wrote they had nowhere to go, the Observer reports that the couple "owned land in France on which they had previously stayed". The report also raised serious doubts about Moth's terminal diagnosis of corticobasal degeneration (CBD), a rare condition in the same family as Parkinson's disease. He has been living with it for 18 years, "with no visibly acute symptoms", according to the Observer, but it usually has a life expectancy of around six to eight years and the specialists the publication spoke to were "sceptical". While they still make headlines, do these scandals around fabrication have the same impact they once did, in today's era of "fake news"? And what is "truth" in memoir anyway? Of course, we've been here before - most infamously, perhaps, 20 years ago with James Frey, 1990s poster boy for literary pork pies. In 2005, key claims in his addiction memoir, A Million Little Pieces, were debunked by website The Smoking Gun, which posts legal documents, arrest records and police mugshots. Frey's US publisher, Random House, was sued by a group of readers for breach of contract and fraud. The publisher offered refunds to any reader with a receipt for buying the book. Culturally, Frey suffered a blow worse than anything financial: he was cancelled by Oprah. In last month's interview, Frey indignantly argued his book was "85 per cent true [...] as most memoirs are". His main retort, though, was more philosophical: "When Picasso makes a self-portrait, if it's not photorealist, is it invalid?" Is a true story akin to the facts? What does it matter, and to whom? In the case of A Million Little Pieces, the question was interrogated legally. To call something memoir is to make a contract with the reader around facts - and this was breached. In the case of The Salt Path, that process is still unfolding. But how exactly do we cordon off facts from embellishments? Is fact strictly tied to the observable: times, places, names, events, chronologies? Can something be true but not factual? What about feelings? Pain itself is known to be experienced in variable ways, and any hotel review will tell you one person's ultimate luxury is another's shabby hell. The task of the writer is, surely, to reflect the peculiarly specific feeling of their living. Fundamentally, memoirists always manipulate story. Memoir is not autobiography. It involves a careful selection of the parts of our life that fit together to make a narrative - and it can employ a vast spectrum of fictional techniques. Carmen Maria Machado's In the Dream House, for example, uses a disjointed narrative arc of strung-together genre tropes (like sci-fi and self-help) to tell the story of her time in an abusive relationship. Helen Garner has written about the careful act of shaping the "I" who appears in her nonfiction. "There can be no writing without the creation of a persona," she says. "In order to write intimately - in order to write at all - one has to invent an 'I'." But it is clear that for Garner, the creation of a persona is not mere invention. We know this because she has spoken, too, about the freedom fiction gives her to make things up - a freedom she no doubt embraced after criticism over her conflation of multiple people into a single person in The First Stone. Much of Frey's indignance now seems to stem from the absurdity of how low the bar has sunk when it comes to standards of truth. And he has a point. To know whether an image is counterfeit, now we have to hope it includes hands (notoriously difficult for AI to master). Ours is a world where social media, absent of checks and balances, is the only growing source of news media. A world where whole journals are compromised by the mass generation of fake science - and where we swallow wholesale the documentarian claims of "reality TV", while knowing it is scripted. In such a world, what's a little fuzziness around the exact reasons a couple found themselves without a home and walking the cliffs of Devon? The contract with a reader is an emotional one - to believe someone has lived through the story they are telling involves a different kind of investment of self: a deeper empathy, a willingness to sit with pain or joy or fear that was real for the writer. And that is worth honouring.

'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
'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

Daily Mail​

time6 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.'

The 10 best things to do in Dorset
The 10 best things to do in Dorset

Telegraph

time7 days ago

  • Telegraph

The 10 best things to do in Dorset

Though Dorset's coastline steals the show, some fascinating sights are tucked away in the mellow hinterland too. Perhaps always destined to be the sleepy neighbour to Devon and trendy Somerset, Dorset's lack of fast roads and city sights is part of its draw. There's a wealth of history to dig into, from Jurassic-era fossils on the coast – a natural World Heritage Site – to evidence of neolithic remains, Iron Age hillforts and medieval castles. If you tire of simply relaxing on the many beaches, there are numerous watersports to get the heart racing. The South West Coast Path, meanwhile, keeps walkers happy, charting a rugged route past iconic cliffs and rock formations. All our recommendations below have been hand selected and tested by our resident destination expert to help you discover the best things to do in Dorset. Find out more below or for further inspiration, see our guides to the region's best hotels, restaurants and beaches. Find things to do by type: Best for days out by the sea Swanage and Weymouth Enjoy a traditional day at the seaside If buckets, spades and helter skelters are more your thing, Swanage and Weymouth are two thriving seaside towns with echoes of the past and a friendly atmosphere. Swanage is smaller and less built up, with a fine sweep of sand. Weymouth's beach is complemented by a bustling quayside, where crabbing is popular. Or try Bournemouth's long and lively main beach, with its Victorian pier. Insider tip: The historic steam railway is integral to Swanage's vintage charms. Plan ahead to ride the steam carriage at sunset, past fireworks during Swanage carnival or catch it to watch outdoor cinema in the ruins of Corfe Castle during the Purbeck Film Festival.

The Salt Path readers are fuming and demand refunds after 'true story' controversy
The Salt Path readers are fuming and demand refunds after 'true story' controversy

Daily Mirror

time16-07-2025

  • Entertainment
  • Daily Mirror

The Salt Path readers are fuming and demand refunds after 'true story' controversy

Bookshops offer refunds for The Salt Path, as author Raynor Winn is accused of lying about and leaving out key elements of the South West Coast Path story - and readers feel 'conned' Bookshops and online stores are offering refunds for The Salt Path, as author Raynor Winn is accused of lying about and leaving out key elements of the South West Coast Path story - and readers feel "conned." Winn has been accused of not being completely honest in her account of the memoir - which is about a huge hike around the South West Coast Path. ‌ Angry readers of The Salt Path are demanding refunds and leaving the once-loved book scathing reviews after author Raynor Winn was accused of lying. The "true story" has now been contested, although the writer maintains that it reflects her and her husband's journey "accurately". ‌ But readers are now asking for refunds as some have said they feel "conned" and "disappointed". Others have flocked to the book's Amazon page to leave negative reviews, since the accusations came to light. ‌ Moving circumstances were detailed in the book, that more than two million people have read, but now Winn is facing claims that it is not a true story - and some key elements were omitted. Readers have been leaving one-star reviews on the Amazon book page for the book, as well as requesting refunds en masse. It all comes after an investigation into the "true tale" by The Observer newspaper. However, Winn continues to defend the book and the account of the real-life experience herself and her husband endured. ‌ The newspaper investigation looked deep into the backgrounds of The Salt Path's protagonists, Winn and her husband, Moth. Their real names are Sally and Tim Walker - and though the book detailed them being forced out of their home in Wales, this the investigation argued was not true. Instead, the exposé alleged that when an investment in a childhood friend's business went wrong, their property was repossessed. Further, Winn is accused of stealing tens of thousands of pounds from a former employer, for which, the Observer writers, that she was later arrested. Allegedly, the couple then failed to repay a loan taken out with a relative to repay this "stolen money" which had been agreed on the terms that police involvement would be avoided. However, after failing to repay, it's claimed that this is the reason the couple lost their home. ‌ For more stories like this subscribe to our weekly newsletter, The Weekly Gulp, for a curated roundup of trending stories, poignant interviews, and viral lifestyle picks from The Mirror's Audience U35 team delivered straight to your inbox. Despite the investigation's claims the couple have defended the memoir's contents. Raynor told The Mirror: "We are taking legal advice and won't be making any further comment at this time. The Salt Path lays bare the physical and spiritual journey Moth and I shared, an experience that transformed us completely and altered the course of our lives. This is the true story of our journey.' ‌ Readers have been left fuming, with Amazon reviews of the book demanding refunds. One reviewer said they felt "completely conned" and another wrote they "didn't want to read it anymore". Others mentioned the investigation into the author's The Salt Path had left them really "disappointed". Questions over Moth's rare neurological condition, corticobasal degeneration have also been raised - as life expectancy after diagnosis is up to eight years, the NHS reports. However, Moth has been living for 18 years since he was told he has the disease - which is similar to Parkinson's - yet he has no visible symptoms. The Observer's investigation contacted neurologists who specialise in corticobasal degeneration - and one told the newspaper that his illness "does not pass the sniff test" in their opinion. But the couple continue to defend the book - which has also been made into a major film - and the story behind it. Help us improve our content by completing the survey below. We'd love to hear from you!

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