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8 min read

You may never take the Salt Path but here's why the tale makes sense

Kindness runs deep in the architecture of reality.

Roger is a Baptist minister, author and Senior Research Fellow at Spurgeon’s College in London. 

A hiking couple sit on the grass next to a pack.
Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs.
BBC Films.

The Salt Path is a phenomenon.  

An internationally best-selling book and now a movie starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs. How is it that a memoir of a middle-aged couple walking the South West Coast Path from Somerset to Dorset, via Land’s End, has had such an impact? 

Well, it’s because it resonates. It rings true. It’s about life as we know it, even if we haven’t hiked the 630 miles of the path from start to finish. A journey that is also, incidentally, the equivalent of climbing Mt Everest four times over. 

In the events leading up to their walk Raynor (Ray) and Moth Winn are dealt a series of body blows. They’re left bankrupt and homeless empty-nesters, struggling to come to terms with Moth’s deteriorating health.  

It was just as the bailiffs were seeking to gain access to their farm and take possession of it that Ray spotted an old book, 500 Hundred Mile Walkies, and took inspiration. 

‘We could just walk.’ 

And that’s what they did. 

So, what are the truths about life and our human experience that this story opens up for us? 

Life is precarious  

Bad stuff happens. Sometimes we bring it on ourselves, the consequence of wrong or ill-judged decisions. Other times it is thoroughly undeserved. Life turns around and bites us, hard. We’re left with our heads numb and spinning round with the persistent but unanswered question, ‘why me?’ 

For the Winns, an investment in the business of a trusted, life-long friend failed. The deal he structured left them responsible for the debts of his company. The end of a prolonged legal battle meant they lost everything, their farm, their home, their business, and the life-long friend. 

The same week also found them in a hospital in Liverpool getting the diagnosis for Moth’s chronic shoulder pain. It was not the suspected nerve damage, but rather the fatal neurological condition corticobasal degeneration. CBD. A diagnosis that was untreatable and only finally confirmed postmortem. 

Whether it’s the South West Coast Path or the familiar details of our own life, we can never fully anticipate tomorrow. We do not know what lies behind the next headland or what unwelcome surprises life may spring on us. No, we need to live in the moment. It’s pointless worrying about tomorrow and we ought to let it worry about itself. We can only live in today. As Ray reflected towards the end of their time on the path: 

“This second in the millions of seconds was the only one, the only one that we could live in.” 

Who am I, really? 

Early in the book Ray recalls: 

“I once heard a lecture by Stephen Hawking, when he said, ‘It’s the past that tells us who we are. Without it we lose our identity.’ Perhaps I was trying to lose my identity, so I could invent a new one.” 

Who are we when everything is stripped away? What defines us? Homeless and jobless, questions about where we’re from and what we do are not only awkward, they also create an existential void.  

Often mistaken for tramps, Ray and Moth noticed people treating them differently. Some quietly moved away, others were more forthright, “disgusting!” But the judgement of others does not define who we are. Yet, who actually were they in this new world of theirs?  

And then there’s the impact of failing health. Each stage of deterioration promising to erode what can be physically done and requiring a redefinition until there is nothing left at all.  

Yet identity is deeper than that. It is at the core of who we are, at the very heart of us. It is the sum of our experiences and choices, our successes and failures, of what we have gladly embraced and that which life has unexpectedly thrown at us. We are unique individuals with intrinsic value, worth and dignity. People who love and are loved. 

At the end of the path Ray muses: 

“Most people go through their whole lives without answering their own questions: What am I, who do I have within me? The big stuff. What a waste.” 

I guess that’s one of the attractions of making space to walk. To lose the distractions and busyness of our over-complicated lives for self-discovery to break in. 

One step at a time 

How do you get your head around walking 630 miles? How can you appreciate the demands of climbing unknown hills and cliffs and navigating their gullies and ravines.  

On top of the terrain there’s the notorious English weather to negotiate. With little money and only a tent for respite: when it rains you get wet and stay wet, when it’s cold, you shiver and put on as many layers as you can. Even in August it can be challenging. 

Walk, eat, sleep, repeat. 

Sometimes the only thing to do is put one foot in front of the other.  

“Each step had its own resonance, its moment of power or failure. That step, and the next and the next and the next, was the reason and the future. … each day survived a reason to live through the next.” 

There is always agency. There is always the opportunity to choose today which path to travel and which attitude to serve. To give in or go on, to be a defeatist or hopeful, complaining or generous, those choices are always there, even when they’re limited. Even in the wake of unfair decisions and unexpected tragedy, we choose today the way we take. And sometimes that’s all we can muster. 

The kindness of strangers 

Ray and Moth’s story is littered with moments of kindness and warmth. From the lovelorn waitress who sneaks them the day’s leftover pasties to the generosity of a hippie commune there is a recurring theme that echoes an underlying goodness in the nature of people. And often it is those with the least who prove to be the most open-handed and thoughtful. 

On more than one occasion the Winn’s themselves share from their own meagre supply of food, especially their precious fudge bars, with those in a more uncertain state than their own. On another occasion they step into a tense and potentially violent situation with a young woman, Sealy, the subject of an abusive relationship. They offer her company and a way out, ultimately paying for her £5 bus journey to get away to family. 

There is something heartwarming about kindness, something elevating. Both the giver and the receiver feel encouraged, lighter, happier. The abiding truth continues to stand the test of time that it is ‘better to give than to receive’.  

Strangely, watching these scenes play out in my local Showcase Cinema was an uplifting and inspiring experience. You can never predict or properly anticipate when a tear will unexpectedly present itself to the corner of your eye. I suspect that kindness runs more deeply in the nature of things than we comprehend. It is part of the deep architecture of reality.

Love and relationship in tough times 

When it comes down to it, The Salt Path is about Ray’s relationship with Moth. How they face an unimaginably difficult set of circumstances and find a way through together. This is a profoundly hopeful story. And from it we can draw hope too. 

There was nothing religious about what they were doing, “It’s not a pilgrimage. Is it?”  

At one level it is purely a response to desperation. But in the midst of it all they have each other. Thirty-two years together, having begun their relationship when Ray was 18, they are still deeply in love. They epitomise the values enshrined in the marriage vows. 

“… to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part …” 

This is not slushy sentimentality but rather love that proves itself in the face of the onslaught of ‘worse … poorer … sickness … death’. 

The conclusion of their journey led Ray to a realisation: “I was home, there was nothing left to search for, he was my home.” As the ancient poet wrote: 

“Set me as a seal upon your heart,  

as a seal upon your arm; 

for love is strong as death, 

passion fierce as the grave. 

Its flashes are flashes of fire, 

a raging flame. 

 

Many waters cannot quench love, 

neither can floods drown it. 

If one offered for love 

all the wealth of one's house, 

it would be utterly scorned.” 

(Song of Solomon) 

That’s it then. The book and the movie work because they reflect back to us the life we know, the lives we live. Yes, they’re in high relief in the choices that Ray and Moth take, but that clarifies things for us. Most of us won’t ever find ourselves in the position they were in, but we can empathise. Most of us would never think to do what they did even if we were. But for all that, we see, we understand and it makes sense. 

If you get a chance to see the film, then do. Gillian Anderson and Jeremy Isaacs are exceptionally good in their understated performances. The visual experience of the South West coast is everything you would expect it to be, sounding as majestic and immersive as if you were there. A real treat. 

For me, the most poignant and telling moment of the story happens at Lyme Regis. Moth says: 

“When it does come, the end, I want you to have me cremated. …keep me in a box somewhere, then when you die the kids can put you in, give us a shake and send us on our way … They can let us go on the coast, in the wind, and we’ll find the horizon together.” 

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Article
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Distraction
5 min read

Reading is the perfect act of rebellion in our screen society

A fortunate meeting with the right text works an unfathomable, transformative magic.

Rachel is a reader and writer, a coach, and an educator. 

A young boy pores over a book tracing the lines with a finger.
Michael Parzuchowksi on Unsplash.

Every year out of the 22 years that I have been teaching, there has been at least one child, increasingly several, who lay down the gauntlet in September. They steady their feet and ball their fists before sizing up to inform me that they hate reading, they always will, no matter what I do, so there!  

I likely raise an eyebrow and one side of my mouth; I don’t rub my hands together but the flame inside me leaps as I accept this familiar challenge. I’ve faced it so many times before and have almost always emerged the victor come July.  

The secret is knowing great books, knowing the individual reader and knowing how to make that perfect match.  

To read or not to read? That is the perplexing and troublesome question bothering many a teacher and (in my opinion) not enough parents in the present day. Need convincing? Though numerous research studies have evidenced significant benefits to cognitive function, brain health, physical longevity, mental health, stress relief, empathy, intelligence and sleep patterns, the National Literacy Trust's 2024 survey of over 76,000 children found that reading for pleasure saw an 8.8 per cent drop in just one year from 43.4 per cent to a worryingly low 34.6 per cent. This represents the lowest percentage since records began in 2005. Furthermore, trends are much the same throughout the adult population. It’s perhaps not hard to work out why picking up a book has declined in popularity. In our high-speed world of fleeting concentration, where bright, moving images flicker and fade, the monochrome, demanding, inanimate pages of a book can seem dull by comparison.  

But a little effort can be hugely rewarding. Indeed, imaginatively creating, rather than consuming digital images, is the perfect act of rebellion in an utterly conformist, screen-based society. It is counter-cultural and subversive to sit awhile and demand that you bring your undivided attention to an effortful activity. To switch off devices and work your way into the unexplored possibilities of your own mind through the pages of a good book.   

Teaching this to children has been my mission through 22 years of teaching English. I consider myself one of the stalwart guardians of the flame. The responsibility weighs heavy, urgent, and terrifying as resistance increases year on year. I obsess over it, feeling rationally afraid that if I stop breathing onto those embers for even one moment, the opportunity for revival will be lost…forever.  

So, what of these books? What are we guarding? What is this paper-based treasure? 

Imagine, for a moment, the sensational day when some tech billionaire creates a functioning portal or time machine, facilitating transportation back to the Tudors or the Trenches at the touch of a button.  

Consider the mindless jostling to board a new rocket destined for a dystopian future not too distant or dissimilar from the present. Picture the frantic rush to buy personal transportation devices to enable visits to the rainforests of Guatemala, the Arctic glaciers or tropical island shores at a moment’s notice.  

Imagine the insatiable sales of holograms masquerading as friends next to whom we could sink into an armchair creating free access to the minds of the rich and famous.  

There would be jostling, posturing and frantic networking to get in on the action. That billionaire could set his price. Millions would be hastily spent to gain access. 

But when that experience can be easily bought for somewhere in the region of £7.99 and comes in a 20x13cm rectangular paper format with monochrome printed pages, the levels of sensation and desirability dramatically drop through the floor.  

In a world of fakery, a written encounter with truth transforms. Where empathy and compassion are eroded, accessing the imagination redeposits. 

We fail to see that our books are indeed those time machines, transportation devices and conversations with wise giants. We were gifted such possibilities at the time of the printing press. A well-chosen book should never leave you the same at its last word as you were when encountering the first. Between those two covers was a moment in time when you were profoundly and fundamentally changed for eternity. You acquired new knowledge, encountered new people and places, travelled through time, experienced ranging emotions and developed thoughts and ideas in conversation with the greats. Something within you was transformed for good or for ill with your choice of book. If nothing happened, you need help choosing. 

Content matters also. We should feed our minds as carefully as we should feed our bodies.  

In a world of fakery, a written encounter with truth transforms. Where empathy and compassion are eroded, accessing the imagination redeposits. Where loneliness and depression devour, explorations of good character and relationship will nourish. Where fame and power corrupt, examples of service and humility will heal.  

Good books will always nourish the soul. 

Whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent or praiseworthy – we should think on such things. This is why running our eyes over good words and filling our ears with exemplary voices is essential.  

It is nothing short of a miracle that I can consult the wisdom of C.S. Lewis, the brave imagination of Katherine Rundell, the compassion of Maya Angelou and the teaching of Tom Wright in the silent space surrounding my armchair. I can equally learn from those who knew Frederick Douglass and those who knew Jesus not as figures in history but as a friend and teacher, a person of flesh and bone, in their literal time and space. They saw his face, they heard his voice, they felt the warmth of his hands on their skin, and I can know about it from their contemporary writings. I can consult equally with the writer of those ancient songs of wisdom that are the Psalms and the writer to the citizens of Philippi and know that between the words on those pages lies a moment when I am profoundly and fundamentally changed for all eternity.   

Wise words are powerful, and they endure. They outlive a lifetime. They are miraculous and accessible. The world needs them. 

So, to read or not read? The question is significant. It defines humanity. We guardians know that those last glowing embers must never be allowed to die. To read is a gift. It is noble work. It is a powerful and necessary act of rebellion in a world so out of touch with the Word. 

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