

The bailiffs took their family home in the same week Raynor Winn and husband Moth were told – completely out of the blue – Moth had a terminal illness. Destitute and homeless, they decided to backpack along the windswept cliffs of the South West Coast Path that runs the length of the west coast of England. 630 miles of steep, unforgiving terrain. With very little money for food and only a tent for shelter they began to walk and walk and walk… this is their story.
On this episode we cover:
Going from homeless to being published by Penguin (with her new book The Salt Path)
How Raynor and Moth became homeless
The farm in Wales they called home
Investing in a business that failed
Battling a court case and losing
Being evicted from their family home
The shock Moth being unexpectedly told he has two years to live
The neuro-degenerative brain disease he was diagnosed with
Hiding under the stairs from the bailiffs
The book that inspired them to start walking
Embarking on the South West Coast Path
Carrying heavy rucksacks
630 miles of difficult terrain with an ascent close to climbing Everest nearly four times
The path through Somerset, North Devon, Cornwall, South Devon and Dorset
‘A strip of wilderness that sits between every day life and the endless horizon’
Encountering terrifying storms
Lands End in a horrendous storm
Nothing but the Atlantic in between them and Canada
Realising they were free
The rural homeless communities they encountered – living in horseboxes and sheds or in camps in the woods
Seasonal work that doesn’t pay a living wage for Cornish locals
Feeling threatened by unpredictable fellow humans when in towns
Being surprised by being ‘the old backpackers’
The negative response when they said they were homeless
The point of transition to realising what homelessness meant
Being kicked by a woman whilst scrabbling for dropped coins on the street
How her sense of self started to disintegrate
Their weekly income of about £30 a week
Living on very little food – super noodles!
Characters they met along the way – including the person who predicted they would ‘walk with a tortoise’
A tortoise called Lettuce
Moth growing stronger along the journey
Swimming with Portheras Cove on a beautiful warm evening
Outrunning the tide with a tent on rebuilding their self-worth
Encountering a stranger whose life was changed by an article she wrote for The Big Issue – magazine sold by homeless for homeless
How offers of kindness were so life affirming when they had nothing
Getting free meals in the name of poet Simon Armitage
Getting stoned with surfers in horse boxes
Seeing the Plymputh to Santander ferry heading off, knowing that this was the ferry they had taken with their children when they were younger
How their two children, both at university, reacted to their parents homelessness
How Moth’s impending decline inspired her to write the book
What their plans are now
Whether there will be a Salt Path Movie
How the walk gave them an incredible landscape for them to try to rebuild themselves
How salty blackberries made the most memorable moment from the walk
Skylarks and their song