The Salt Path author wrote secret first book despite claiming she was debut writer

The Salt Path author Raynor Winn wrote a book published in 2012 – despite repeatedly claiming her controversial 2018 release documenting a life-changing walk was the first she had ever written.

In a new BBC Sounds podcast Secrets of the Salt Path, Winn's lawyers confirmed on her behalf that she previously wrote a book under the alias Izzy Wyn-Thomas.

It was published by a company which she and her husband owned and was sold as part of a prize draw to win their home in north Wales.

Winn went on to win a number of accolades for The Salt Path, including a £10,000 prize for a debut novelist or non-fiction writer.

An investigation by The Observer in 2025 also claimed the book featured misleading information about her life story.

Winn repeatedly claimed The Salt Path was the first book she had ever written.

In an interview for Waterstones in 2020, she said: "It's the first thing I've written since I was a teenager leaving school – the first thing."

In the same interview, her husband Moth was asked if he knew his wife could write before completing The Salt Path, which later was made into a film starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs.

He replied: "No, not at all. Not that she could write. Surprised me."

And in an interview with BBC Radio Cornwall in 2019 about how she became a published author, Raynor said: "I googled for an agent, as you do when you have no connections and no idea what you're doing."

However, the couple did have some experience in writing and publishing.

Raynor had previously written a book which was published by their company in 2012.

Raynor Winn said in a statement online: "In desperation, we briefly tried running a book-based house raffle like others had done, but quickly realised it was a mistake."

Gangani Publishing was set up in March 2012, registered to an industrial estate just outside of Bangor, Gwynedd.

Companies House lists Tim Walker as the director, and Sally Walker as a shareholder - the legal names of Raynor and Moth Winn, who at the time were living near Pwllheli in north Wales.

Gangani Publishing only seems to have published one book called How Not to Dal Dy Dir by an author called Izzy Wyn-Thomas.

Gangani is the name of a historic Celtic tribe in Wales, whilst Dal Dy Dir is a Welsh nationalist phrase, which means 'stand your ground'.

It is estimated there were only a few copies of the book How Not to Dal Dy Dir printed, with copies difficult to track to down.

According to the National Library of Wales, it was Izzy Wyn-Thomas's first and only book.

The online blurb says the book is a "darkly humorous novel that uses the deftest touch to draw a thread through the lives of Welsh farmers, city accountants, Indian hoteliers and Eisteddfod mums".

Matt Swarbrick, a farmer in Henbant, near Caernarfon, read the book after seeing it advertised by the publisher on an online forum for smallholders.

"I was really hungry for people who had done what we'd done and their stories, and this popped up as part of that," he recalled.

I remember being excited about the book because I had to buy it off their own website and it felt like we were on maybe a similar journey.

Swarbrick said he was keen to hear about similar stories to his own, after he bought an abandoned farm not far from Raynor and Moth in north Wales.

To me it felt like there was a journey of exploring relationships with neighbours and people around them. I think some of those were healthy relationships and maybe some were more complicated.

Online posts in the name of Izzy Wyn-Thomas, seen by the BBC, claimed the local bookshop owner, called Steve, refused to stock the book.

A bookshop in Pwllheli is run by Stephen Lloyd Wright. Could this be the Steve who refused to stock Izzy's book?

"I'd have to say, if I did refuse to stock it, I've got absolutely no recollection whatsoever of the conversation.

That would probably be the first book by a local author that I've ever refused to stock.

However, Steve said he was aware of the couple living nearby from working in the shop.

"Sally wasn't particularly familiar to me. Tim, on the other hand, was quite a regular customer. A very outgoing person, he seemed to be pretty open about his life," he said.

However, the bookseller was not aware that Tim was also in the industry.

"You would've thought, as director of the publishing house, he may well have said, you know, 'would you like to help me out?'

Since he was kind enough to be a customer of mine, I would've reciprocated but that never happened.

The BBC asked Raynor Winn if this is the same Steve refenced in the online posts, however they did not answer the question. He is the only bookseller with this name in Pwllheli.

The Walkers did approach another Pwllheli-based Welsh language bookshop with copies of How Not To Dal Dy Dir, and that bookshop stocked five copies of the novel.

The owner said: "I was interested in the title. But when I looked at the book, I realised it was not what I thought it was. It is quite odd to choose that phrase as the title.

They didn't give it much of a chance to sell.

Gangani Publishing tried to market the book online and, in mid 2012, they posted on an online forum called The Accidental Smallholder which is designed to provide support for smallholders and gardeners.

The post said that anyone who bought the book would be entered into a prize draw to win their friend's house, which they have to let go due to ill health.

Swarbrick, who bought the book after seeing it on this forum, said he vaguely remembered the prize draw, but could not recall the exact details or any communication with the publishers after buying the book.

The details in the online post were not true. The house being raffled off was in fact Raynor and Moth's own home, Pen Y Maes near Pwllheli.

The couple advertised the home as a prize "offered free of mortgage or any other legal or registered charge".

But according to Land Registry documents the house did have a debt registered against it, as well as a mortgage.

Raynor and Moth had taken a loan from a family member in 2008 after, it is claimed, Raynor embezzled about £64,000 from her former employer Martin Hemmings and needed to pay it back. The debt, which was passed on to another lender in 2010, had an interest rate of 18%.

An attempt to offer a property with debt as a mortgage-free prize could amount to fraud.

But there's no record of Gangani Publishing being investigated by the local authority, Cyngor Gwynedd.

And, given the time elapsed, the council confirmed they had no intention of looking into the matter.

In a written online statement in July 2025, Winn said she had worked for Hemmings "in the years before the economic crash of 2008".

For me it was a pressured time. It was also a time when mistakes were being made in the business. Any mistakes I made during the years in that office, I deeply regret, and I am truly sorry.

She also admitted she and Moth were behind the prize draw.

It was a mistake, as it clearly wasn't going to work. We cancelled it and refunded the few participants.

Raynor Winn has never previously admitted that she wrote the book, but it was confirmed by her solicitors that she did write How Not to Dal Dy Dir.

The BBC asked both Raynor and Moth a series of questions and requested an interview for Secrets of the Salt Path, which they declined.

In 2019, Winn won the Christopher Bland Prize for The Salt Path.

According to Royal Society of Literature's website, it's "an annual award of £10,000 for a debut novelist or non-fiction writer first published in any form aged 50 or over".

The BBC asked the Royal Society of Literature, if this new information affected the prize she was awarded.

They told us that, in 2019 - the year The Salt Path won - they did allow entries from writers who had previously self-published. The following year, the rules were changed.

Winn's fourth book, published by Penguin, was due to be published in October 2025, but was delayed indefinitely because the author had suffered "considerable distress".

In December 2025, Penguin updated the release date to January 2028.

Penguin Michael Joseph, which published The Salt Path, did not respond to the BBC's questions, but previously said it "undertook all the necessary due diligence" before releasing The Salt Path, after a series of claims about the book's accuracy.

Source: BBC
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