The Salt Path by Raynor Winn review walking to freedom

The day after Raynor and Moth found out they were going to lose the Welsh farm where they had brought up their two children, a doctor told Moth that he had a rare and incurable degenerative brain disease. Within days the bailiffs came knocking and they were homeless.

So what do you do when you’re in your 50s, have lost all your worldly possessions and been diagnosed with a terminal illness? Naturally, you decide to walk the South West Coast Path, from Minehead in Somerset, through north Devon, Cornwall and south Devon, to Poole in Dorset, via Land’s End. A 630-mile walk, equivalent to climbing Mount Everest four times.

“Are you mad?” asks their daughter, and as they set off, each with a heavy rucksack, Raynor agrees that they are “probably insane for thinking we could walk this path”. But as their world collapses around them, the coastal path gives them a purpose and offers them the desperate hope that on the way they can find some kind of future.

Their journey is filled with as many ups and downs as the undulating cliff-edge route. Yet the freedom of wild camping, swimming in the moonlit sea and surviving on fudge and pasties allows them to come to terms with their situation and learn to hope again: “Like the windblown trees along our route, we had been re-formed by the elements.”

Filled with wry humour, this is a wonderfully uplifting and touching book, which was shortlisted for the 2018 Costa biography award.

The Salt Path is published by Penguin (£9.99). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £15, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.

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