Raynor Winn: Walking the Salt Path taught me to live for right now

On a Thursday afternoon in August 2013, English couple Raynor and Moth Winn left behind life as they knew it and went for a long walk. The week before, they'd been suddenly evicted from their home of 20 years and Moth diagnosed with a rare and untreatable neurodegenerative condition.

In the film version of The Salt Path, actors Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs perfectly capture how the couple felt leaving their house for good that day with no idea what was ahead, Raynor tells Saturday Morning.

"It just seemed like the most obvious thing to do - pack a rucksack and go for a walk - so that's what we did."

Related stories:

The Winns had put everything into restoring their beloved home so being suddenly evicted - following a financial problem with a friend - came as a major blow, Raynor says.

At the same time, they were reckoning with Moth's shock diagnosis of Corticobasal Degeneration (CBD), in which people lose movement and eventually speech.

"It was almost impossible to comprehend that Moth, who had led such an active life, who'd always been a very physical, very outdoors person, could possibly have this thing that was going to change all of that.

“It was as if the whole future had become a void with this awful fear of what might happen to Moth just looming inside that emptiness."

"The idea of following a line on a map seemed like something that would draw us forward. It would take us into the next day. It would give us a reason and a purpose. That's what we clung on to.”

Winn says the couple were full of "awful negative emotions" in their first few weeks walking the Salt Path - a nickname for the South West Coast Path - but eventually those started to lift.

“That's what those headlands did for us. They gave us space not to process it - there was no processing it - but simply to be, and a sense of acceptance came from that."

They had no idea whether Moth would be able to physically walk the rugged coastal path, Raynor says.

"At the start, he could barely put his coat on without help, so we really weren't expecting too much, or really probably expecting to get too far."

But it's remarkable what you can do when life becomes a matter of getting through the days, she says.

"You're not telling yourself you have to endure. You simply are enduring because there's nothing else. It alters the way you think about things."

Seeing other people walking the track recoil when the Winns mentioned they were homeless completely changed Raynor's perspective, as did the visceral experience of hunger.

"Being at a point where all you're going to eat today is a packet of noodles, and you're with someone who has a terminal illness who needs sustenance... it just changes your attitude to everything."

Raynor's hope for The Salt Path film is that it leads people to feel more consideration when they see someone bedding down in a shop doorway, for example.

"They aren't an awkward statistic, they're actually people who've come to this point through their own life story. They're individuals.

"If anything, what that path taught me was to live for right now, not to not spend my time agonising over what's happened in the past that can't be changed, or what might happen in the future I can't predict, but simply to appreciate this moment, because really, it's the only one we've got."