Good Read
Lauren Molyneux curls up with a good book to review one of the latest best sellers
The Salt Path
Raynor Winn
Raynor Winn is knocked off her feet when she is given the news that her husband, Moth, is going to be taken from her by an evil terminal illness which will change the man she’s known and loved for decades into someone essentially unrecognisable. Just a few days later, Raynor and Moth are met with more devastating news when, after years of battling, the outcome of a court case rules against their favour and they lose their family home and livelihood.
With both children grown up and trying to build lives of their own, the couple can’t help but feel a burden to the friends and family members that offer to help them in their time of need. With nothing left to fight for, no money and an unknown length of time left together, they decide to walk the 630-mile South West Coast Path from Somerset to Dorset, via Devon and Cornwall. Scraping by, living on cheap packets of instant noodles with a second-hand tent as their shelter and feather-light sleeping bags as their beds, Raynor Winn and her dying husband undergo an incredible redemptive journey through homelessness at the mercy of the earth and her elements.
Winn writes beautifully, monologuing the internal struggle she faces whilst trying to come to terms with the idea of losing the most precious person in her life as his condition, much like the overarching sense of emotion, appears to worsen and then improve with the changing of the seasons, the rolling of the hills and the ebb and flow of the sea. Winn’s story is one that highlights the worst of human and social perspectives as well as the overwhelming kindness exhibited by strangers, but most importantly it encourages an incredible appreciation for Mother Nature.
The Salt Path is nothing shy of being extremely admirable – both the content and the way that it’s presented is enough to place Raynor Winn high on my Top 5 Favourite Famous Females list. Her story raises awareness of the true struggles of homelessness, including the fact that there is an extreme, detrimental social perspective of the people who have to live on the streets that needs to be challenged and combated.
A love letter to nature and the act of putting one foot in front of another as a means of finding answers, The Salt Path is an inspiring (as well as inspired), heartfelt, nature-loving, emotional rollercoaster of social commentary which seeks to showcase how strong we can be when we have love in our hearts.
