Who Trolled Amber? - Cider at Haye | The Walkers Ep3

Episode Date: January 20, 2026

When the television cameras come to a heritage cider farm in Devon, Moth and Raynor Winn take centre stage. Within weeks, they vanished. The farm’s owner, their friend, is left to piece together the disparity between what he’d witnessed…and what Raynor Winn had written about.Subscribe to Observer+ on Apple Podcasts and Spotify to binge listen to the entire series.To find out more about The Observer:Subscribe to TheObserver+ on Apple Podcasts for early access and ad-free contentHead to our website observer.co.uk Credits:Reporter - Chloe HadjimatheouProducer - Matt RussellArtwork: Observer design with thanks to Angela HardingMusic supervision & sound design - Karla PatellaExecutive Producer - Jasper Corbett Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Observer. Can I have a little tour? You can. It's changed since the walkers have been here. But yeah, it's on the market. At the very heart of the salt path is this quirky whitewashed stone building surrounded by fields in rural Wales.

It's there at the beginning of the story and its loss echoes throughout the book and its sequels. It was once the forever home of moth and Raina Wynne, real names Tim and Sally Walker. They lived there for 20 years and raised two children between these walls. Was this their living room? Yes, that's changed. So that was built in.

They had a built-in fire in there. It all brick, I think it was bricked up or something like that. But they didn't realise there was a big leak coming in from the back. So it was all rusty and things like that. I mean, it was in a right old mess. Maxine Faramond lives here now, a cheerful work. woman in her 60s with long white hair. Maxine's a former police officer who bought the house

after she retired in 2016. By that time it had been sitting empty for almost four years after it was repossessed. Rainer Wyn talks about losing the house in the salt path and in almost every interview she's done, often using the exact same phrases, like she's reading from a script. We were in the house at the last month.

last moments. When the bailiffs were knocking on the door. The bailiffs were knocking on the door and we were hiding under the stairs actually. We were hiding under the stairs actually. Not pretending. Not probably thinking that some miracle was going to happen. We thought a miracle would have to go. Because we just didn't feel ready to leave. I don't think we would ever have been ready to leave. How bright it is. Sitting in the bath, looking out of the trees.

Maxine offers me tea and a grand tour. The place is rickety with low ceilings and sloping stone walls. The original bit of the house where the kitchen is dates back to the 1600s. When they left, the walkers took almost everything with them. The farmer who lives next door told me they left in the middle of the night. He saw vans driving off carrying them and all their stuff. So, no hiding under the stairs. They were long gone when the bailiffs came knocking. They didn't leave much behind except all the fittings and interior decoration they'd furnished the place with.

Maxine could tell this was a couple with style. And that wood panelling on the walls? Yeah, the wood panelling was done. These are slate tiles. It was all very expensive. When Maxine took the place over, she knew very little about its previous owners, except that they'd been responsible for converting an old barn into a granny flat, and that the man had a profession. I found a little placard, but it said master plaster on it.

other things are a little bit wonky you know like they're woodworking and things are not great but the plaster and you can tell somebody knows what they're doing when I was decorating I was up in the corner there and I saw you know

what I thought was rough plaster and then I realised it was a signature will you show you? It's in the corner yeah probably need a chair to stand on it's just in the corner there it's quite hard to see hang on

to watch your head on the yeah oh yeah Yeah. I can see it. It says Tim Hart, Sal, kiss, kiss, kiss and there's a date. Soon after Maxine moved in, she began hearing rumours about the previous owners around town. The rumours were that the woman had stolen a lot of money from her employer and had somehow got away with it. I introduced myself to local people and they're saying, oh, you know, well, Tim and Sally used to have that property.

And then someone said, oh, do you know, she's written a book? I went, oh, yeah. But even after she'd finished reading the salt path, Maxine found this mysterious couple intruding on her piece. I was receiving letters from the time that I took the property on. So you moved in here years after the walkers had left, but you were still getting letters for them? Yeah, yeah, from day one, you know, lots and lots and lots of them.

And I kept just putting return to send on the backs of all these letters. And in the end, I started to open them up. And then I found they were bailiff's letters and solicitor's letters. So now Maxine's worried. She gets the sense that something is seriously up with this property. Apart from anything else, there are parking fines and speeding tickets, which seem to indicate that Tim Walker is still using her address on his driving licence. And I thought, oh, flipping neck, I've got something serious going on with the property

that's going to, you know, just ruin it all. So Maxine, the former police officer, starts digging around online. And then I think I found her hurt. on company's house under the pseudonym of Raina Wynne. Found an address. So I wrote to the farm that they were staying at in Cornwall

to politely say, you know, all these letters are still coming. Can you just change your address and stop them coming to my address? The farm they were staying at was called hay. It's nestled among Cornish green fields with a couple of rivers running alongside it.

And having had no response to her letters, One day back in 2023, Maxine picks up the phone and calls. Right away, the owner answers, a posh sounding guy called Bill Cole. We got chatting on the phone. And I told him about some stories that I'd heard locally about Sally stealing some money. It was just gossip when I came up here, you know, and I thought, that was just gossip. I'll take it with a pinch of salt.

It was funny. And so I didn't think much of it. But then when talking to Bill, he was saying how he felt about them and he was getting a little bit suspicious about them. She couldn't have known when she called, but right then, Bill was going through his own turmoil around the couple. For close to five years, they'd been his tenants and his friends living on his farm. Raina Wynne had written two sequels to the Salt Path there.

Bill and his farm were featured in one of them. He was in awe of the couple. He'd only charged them a tiny rent and was even thinking of signing the farmhouse over to them permanently. But around four years after they'd come to stay, Bill began feeling a bit uncomfortable. What he was reading in Rainer's books about Moth's health just didn't seem to match what he was seeing in person.

And by the time her third book, Landlines, was published, Bill had become deeply confused. He just couldn't square the couple living on his farm with the people he was reading about in Rainer's books. It was around a year after Bill's confusion set in that Maxine called, talking about this couple who seemed to have changed their names, about rumours of theft from an employer

and stacks of late payment letters and bailiff notices. When I told him about the stories up here, he was quite shocked. It really cemented what he was feeling about the walkers in his situation. But if Maxine thought Bill could help her get in touch with Rainer and Moth, she was going to be disappointed. By the time I was chatting to Bill, they'd actually gone very suddenly. The Walkers had vanished again.

I'm Chloe Hajimuthéu, and from Tortus Investigates and The Observer, you're listening to The Walkers, the real salt path. Episode 3, Sider at Hay. When we bought this property, that was when Bill said to us, well, my tenant, your neighbour, is Rainer Wynn. When Ruth Saberton moved in next door to Hay Farm, she was excited. She'd met Rainer Wyn once before in 2019 when they were both up for awards for their writing. Ruth's for fiction, Rainers for non-fiction.

Around two decades ago, Ruth used to be an English teacher in London, but she dreamed of being an author. So she quit and moved to Cornwall to follow her two great passions, writing and riding. Ruth is about as horse-mad as you get. Since then, she's become a pretty successful author, with more than 25 novels published, mostly historical romance. Back in 2020, she and her partner Christian bought a defunct old. riding school off Bill, which had once been part of Hay Farm.

They planned to renovate it, but meanwhile, she could keep horses and write. So when Bill told her who her neighbours were going to be, she was sure that she and Raina would get on. But Bill warned her from rushing over there. And he said just obviously they're really, really private people. They've been really hurt by Cooper in the past. And they just want to be left in peace. So I was really respectful of that. Cooper was the man Raina Wynne claimed

had conned her out of her home in Wales. She'd written about how hard she found it to trust people after that. But actually, when Ruth finally got the courage to knock on her door, she found a friendly, rather sweet woman, maybe a bit shy. But she was so welcoming because it's really cold outside. You come in, don't worry, not's gone to Mall Valley Farmers in the farm shop. So come on in, have a cup of tea. And it was really nice to think there might be somebody nearby.

talkbooks too and the whole process of being in your pyjamas still sort of three in the morning trying to finish deadline. It was during that strange time a few years back between COVID lockdowns when people were emerging in different stages of caution. I was really worried about taking the virus to somebody vulnerable. So I had expected to sit outside, to have my coat. It was blustery. I was prepared, but she said, no, don't worry, just come in, don't freeze. So she was really friendly. I'd say she was very shy, very. Very. nervous. And again, I put that down really to the fact that I'd read the book by then, that they'd had such a torrid time. Didn't really want to let anybody get close. When Moth got back

from the shops, he didn't seem to have concerns about social distancing, so Ruth stayed and chatted. It was like meeting a rock star. Really? He had so much presence. Yeah, he just, he's a very tall guy, he's a handsome man, he's got piercing eyes, chock of white hair, and he's warm and friendly and talkative. Ruth and her partner, Christian, had read the salt path and they were conscious of Moth's condition, so they'd regularly check in to see if he needed a hand with anything. Moth and Rana had already been living there 18 months,

and they seemed to have things pretty much in hand. They ended up at Hay Farm because Bill Cole, the farm's owner, was so moved by the salt path that he reached out to Rana on Twitter a few months after the book was published in the autumn of 2018. I've spent months chatting to Bill about what happened. I published an article about him in the Observer newspaper, but ultimately he decided he didn't want to take part in this podcast. It didn't help that he and his family were hounded by the media.

I've seen photos of three men parked outside Hay, who told him they were from the Daily Mail, and BBC producers also showed up at the farm. He and his family found the whole thing pretty stressful. In any case, Bill sent me lots of emails and I took notes during the time we were chatting. So when you hear Bill in this podcast, they're his words, but not his voice. I rang her in the first time we spoke, we spoke for nearly two hours.

I said, look, Ray, forgive me if this sounds really cheesy, but I think our paths are due to cross. Bill told her how he'd also been screwed over in business and how straight after that his wife had been diagnosed with breast cancer. So he felt this great affinity with Rainer. Bill's an investment banker in the city, but his heart's in farming, and he saved and bought hay, one of the oldest cider-producing farms in England. But after his wife's diagnosis, they found it impossible to move there.

It was just too far from a hospital. So however heartbreaking it was for him, he'd resolved to sell it. But then, when Bill read the solid, It occurred to him that the homeless couple, Moth and Rana, might want to take over the running of the farm. At this point, they were living in a rented flat, a short drive-away in the coastal village of Pole Ruin. When Rainer finally agreed to meet him, Bill startled them with a proposition. They could live at hay and make cider while allowing moth to be immersed in the beautiful healing surroundings of the farm. Perhaps the combination of physical exercise and nature would help with his condition.

I said I think the best thing to do is come and see the farm, and that is actually described a bit in the wild silence. In her sequel, The Wild Silence, Raina Wynne writes about meeting Bill for the first time. She calls him Sam. Sam gestured animatically across the fields with his hand. A man whose hands appeared never to have seen dirt, or caught the fleece of a youth thick with lanolin, or laid a hedge. The clean, soft place Some gestured towards some scrubby trees That followed the contours of the valley

Not just for the land itself, but for the orchard It took 30 years of work in the city He pushed his hands through his hair And adjusted his designer sunglasses So I read the wild silence Which came out very soon after I met them Did you like it? I found it peculiar

I didn't find it uplifting or joyous. And I found the descriptions of hay quite bleak as well. It wasn't the place that I knew, which is a very beautiful place full of wildlife, deer, birdsong. In the book, Rainer describes hay as an over-farm, desolate place. It's a picture that former owners of the farm and neighbours, including Ruth, strongly dispute. But Ruth was also taken aback by the portrayal of Bill as this city slicker, disconnected from nature.

It didn't seem like the person that I knew the person I know is very kind, wears his heart on his sleeve, and obviously really cared for them. It didn't seem like a kind portrayal of him or his wife. And they'd done such a generous thing. So that did surprise me. I did say to Bill, how are you about that? And he kind of said, well, you know, that's what publishing is. Publishing will ask for certain things.

Ruth's right. Rainer's description of him doesn't seem fair. It's true he's made a lot of money in the city but you wouldn't know it to look at him he walks around hay farm in old cardigans full of holes and well-worn slippers At first Bill loved having Rainer and moth on his farm Ruth was just a few minutes ride away on her horse

the trail she took often led her past the farm so she'd stop and say hi and I liked them I liked him she faded a little bit into the backgrounds but she was welcoming and kind and shy. I would email her from time to time. I would ride my horse around, and if they were out in the garden, she would come over.

More often it would be Tim. He'd come over, give the horse a polo, give him a pat, have a chat. Did he seem on well? I mean, it's hard to say, isn't it? You can't really tell by looking, but he always seemed full of vitality and good humour. He certainly seemed up for the challenge of running hay farm, which used a traditional manual cider press.

I mean, it's a really grueling process if you get the chance to see it. It's an old-fashioned press made of stones and you have to pull it with a metal pole. So it's hard work. And he was talking to myself and my partner about how he would be working in there until 4 in the morning, making cider.

I remember at the time, my partner said to him, if you need any help, if you need anything physically done, ask us. and we were always, always offering. Because you were concerned because of his illness that it might be impacting on his ability to press the cider. Well, of course, and I'd read the book,

so I knew that he would collapse or movement would be difficult for him. So we both made sure that they knew that we were there, they had our phone numbers, our emails. Did they ever call on you and say, we're in trouble, we're in difficulty, we need your help? No, never. Ruth did wonder if the strenuous work, combined with the very rural setting at the farm,

might be having the same effect on moth as the hike did in the salt path. Walking along the coastal path for months, we were told, reversed the symptoms of his terminal neurological condition. Cortico-basal degeneration, or CBD for short. In Rainer's second book, The World Silence, she wrote about how moth attended university, to study for a degree in horticulture. But the sedentary lifestyle meant his symptoms returned, and this time they were even worse. Moth was lying on the bed when I returned to the chapel.

A strange thing at midday. What's going on? I was so dizzy. Every time I look at the computer screen, it feels as if I'm travel sick. I just had to lie down. You can't do that. You've got to get up and do some exercise.

It'll help. I know it will. Don't you can't you? No. This isn't happening. Get up. Don't let this happen. Just get up.

So the couple decided to go on another long walk in Iceland this time. And it really helped. Perhaps making cider at hay was keeping moth's symptoms at bay. I think part of me probably thought that maybe the magic of the farm was working. I didn't question it too much because what sort of person would you be if you start questioning it? I just accepted that. this was maybe how it was for him. Maybe I just saw him on good days.

I didn't talk about it with them at all, obviously. But as far as Ruth could tell, Moth seemed to be in denial. I was really struck that he liked my Land Rover defender and said he wanted one. And I said to him at the time, it's really, really heavy, you have to hold it on the road. The steering is heavy.

Yeah, you have to hold on. You have to like literally hold on. And it hurts my back and have to climb in. And I said to him, I really wouldn't advise it. not an easy, easy car to drive when you're fit and healthy. So I really want one of those. And they did get one. Rana had told Bill that after the success of the salt path, she'd signed a three-book deal with Penguin, her publisher. So in the summer of 2021, Rainer and Moth went on yet another walk. This one would form the basis for her third book. They went off all summer

in 2021. They went to Scotland because their son came down to mow the farm. And the after the dog. And they went, I think they walked back from Scotland via office dyke. They did like, it's a mad, mad, long walk. We didn't see them for most of that summer.

It made the South West Coastal path look like a little stroll. 1,000 miles from the Cape of Wrath Trail in Scotland, one of the UK's toughest hikes, all the way down home to Cornwall. Bill told me he'd wanted to meet up with them along the way and he contacted them,

suggesting several points he could have joined them for the walk for a day or two, but they didn't seem keen, so he left them alone. When they got back to Cornwall, they began discussing going into business with Bill. There were lots of wonderful joint plans and ideas for the farm. We had agreed to go into business as joint 50-50 partners before the end of the 2022, early 2023 season. We had talked excitedly about Ray at Hay, and their rewilding light project.

In fact, we believe this was going to form the basis of her fourth book. While on the surface, everything looked fine. Underneath, tensions were building. Because despite what they were telling others, the couple hadn't made any cider since they took over the farm. Bill told me that there's an 800-year cider-making tradition at Hay that he didn't want broken. So each autumn, he'd go down to the farm himself

and make a small amount of cider. He didn't want to pressure moth because he was concerned about his health. But in October 2021, soon after the couple had returned from walking a thousand miles from Scotland to Cornwall, Bill thought it might be a good opportunity to raise the subject. He keeps detailed diaries and at the time he made a note of the date, the 21st of October 2021, and how they were all sitting around at hay when he tentatively broached the subject of cider making. I sat opposite Moth and he broke the news. Bill, the doctors have told me not to plan beyond Christmas.

At the time it was an emotional moment and naturally I said, Moth, please just look after yourself and please, please, don't worry about the orchards or the cider making. We just hugged him and assured him that the farm and any related activities were of no importance compared to his well-being. To be fair, this had been our position from day one. Moss's health and well-being was always central to any decision. Afterwards, Bill was heading home and he passed by Ruth's place.

And he said that I've had this dreadful news. Because Moth had told him that it was... Doctors had said, don't plan beyond Christmas. Which we obviously... We knew he was really sick. I didn't know an awful lot about CBD, but I knew what it meant. And I knew that the process would be grueling and heartbring. breaking and I knew what was coming.

And I was so sad for them. After everything that they'd been through and had the fairy tale of the book success and I was just glad they were somewhere beautiful. And Bill was really upset by them. Yeah, he was devastated. Bill told me he'd been close to tears. He hugged Moth and told him not to give the farm a second thought.

It had been an incredibly profound and moving scene hearing Moth say that he didn't have long to live. and that it stayed with him for a long time afterwards. Soon after that, Bill suggested to Rainer and Moth that he could bring people in for the harvest and to make the cider, but Rana told him that Moth's pride was hurt by that, and so Bill dropped it immediately. Things carried on into the spring pretty much as before.

Ruth doesn't notice any change in Moth, but then she doesn't know much about his condition. It's incredibly rare, and she has no idea what she has no idea what. a man dying of CBD looks like, so she keeps these thoughts to herself. And then, finally, Rainer's long-awaited third book, Landlines, is published in the summer of 2022. Bill rushes out and grabs himself a copy and devours it in a day,

and what he reads throws him completely. Next door to Hay Farm, Ruth is going through similar emotions. Chapter 1 is January 2021, it's winter, and she's in hay, and it's bleak. She's freezing cold. She's struggling. The more I read, the worse I felt because it was very clear. They weren't coping. He was deteriorating massively.

He was stumbling into the orchards. He was falling down in the orchards. There was one awful bit where he can't make it to the bathroom. and I think the quotas of them, like, we lay together in a pool of pee. And then I read on a bit, and they go for a walk, and they walk from Hay Farm up here. And he struggles to make it up the hill, and they pause at the top, which is practically outside my gates. It's like, why didn't you come and ask I had to Triffon You Home? And I read it, and I just, I started crying.

I was absolutely distraught because these were my neighbours. I couldn't believe that this awful thing was going on and they hadn't phoned me for help. And I was just, I was so distraught. My partner said, what's wrong? And I told him. And he was upset. And he said, don't read any more.

He said, just put it away for a minute. And so I closed it. But almost as soon as she's put it aside, Bill messages her. I've finished landlines in the small hours and have been up since 4.50 thinking about it all. I'm so troubled by it, feeling awful, just in a trance about it all. Nothing makes sense anymore. And he says, I think you should read the rest.

So Ruth reopens the book. She reads about the walk that spans almost the entire length of the British Isles. And then she gets to the last few chapters, when they're back home, and they go for a check-up with the doctor. So it's got to be winter 20-21, and the doctor says, what are you hoping to see? And moth says something like I'd like to see it,

light up like a Christmas tree. Because in the previous brain scan, the brain is dark because it's dying. It's shutting down. The plaque is building up, which is, I believe, what happens with CBD. But in the second brain scan, the doctor says, well, there you go.

And it's lit up like Christmas. And this is after their long walk. And after their long walk. So presumably the long walk has worked its wonders. And it's rejuvenated his brain. It's rewired his brain. It's done some kind of neurological reset. Some things happened.

And he's still with us. I was just really confused why they wouldn't have told people, why they wouldn't have told the good news to their close friends like Bill. The last Bill and Ruth had heard, Moth was dying. He might not even make it past Christmas. and yet here was Raina Wyn telling the world about a brain scan that defies science. Ruth calls Bill back and they discuss what they've just read and realised that they both feel exactly the same.

Utter confusion. So he hasn't got it or he's better. And I couldn't understand if they'd had this amazing news why I hadn't shared it when we were all so worried. and when obviously we knew, or we'd been told, that he might not make it past the previous Christmas. Why would you not share it? I knew that if my friends had been told her husband was in remission,

they'd defund everybody. We'd have been partying. We'd have been overjoyed. And you celebrate with your friends. I'd have been so happy for them. When I spoke to him about all this, Bill told me that at first, his reaction to the book was just horror, that perhaps the demands of the farm

had left Moth in the state described at the start of the book where he's lying in his own urine. Bill couldn't bear the idea that Moth might feel obliged to take on more than he can cope with so he decided to take action. He brought in a young couple

who could take over the cider making while living on the farm in a caravan. That way Moth and Rana could continue to live on the farm and focus on Moth's health. Rana gave him. Bill her tacit agreement to this, but when he arrives at Hay Farm with the young cider makers, Moth is furious. He comes out the farmhouse shouting. Bill told me it was really terrifying. Moth

looked like a different person, he said. His eyes were blank and he was in a rage. Bill fled. When he gathered his thoughts, he wrote to Rainer. Hi, Ray. Must admit that I left yesterday confused and a little upset. So just wondering if Moth is okay, as he was very un-Moth-like. I know you aren't delighted that this couple are back, but I thought Moth's reception was definitely not in keeping and slightly bizarre. Hope all okay. Raina was busy and it took several days before she replied.

Hi Bill. I'm so sorry you were upset. I'm really, really sorry you encountered the side of CBD. I try to keep away from everyone. It can last a day, a week or more. It takes its own shape, which I know how to deal with, but can come as a shock to others who can't understand the complete contrast to the moth they know.

But at the end of her new book, Bill had read that moth scan showed the disease had all but cleared from his brain. What was going on? So he replied, Hi, Ray. I appreciate your message, but my confusion continues. I've now finished landlines, and although I had an inkling that the health update was positive and thought it was just truly incredible news, are you suggesting that the final few pages are too positive? I'm aware of the pressures publishers put on writers and read with caution, but I'm not sure what to conclude.

Perhaps we just sit down some time and chat openly without worrying about books and stuff. never acknowledges this message and they never speak about any of this again. And now the more Bill thinks about it, the more confused he is. That autumn day when Moth told him he couldn't plan beyond

Christmas, that seemed to be right at the same time as Rainer's book said they were getting a miraculous brain scan from the doctor. Bill messaged Ruth to ask if he was going crazy. No, she told him, she'd started to go back over everything too, and this gradual, sickening feeling was creeping over her.

I read the books with my heart because it was such a good, happy story, and because I knew them, and because I cared. And I was thrilled. I was so thrilled she'd had a literary success. It was the real kind of good luck redemptive arc, wasn't it? It was everything it should be. It was a fairy tale. And I've got to look at these again, and I've got to take off. the part of me that knows them, cares about my... I've got to read it with my literary critic head. And I went through each book. And I started to make copious notes about what made sense and what didn't.

The bailiffs that turned up five days after the court case, well, my family of illegal background, I know that courts don't work that way. And suddenly all these things that I just read and just accepted when I looked at with a more objective and maybe a coup with a critical eye, just didn't make sense. Bill was going through the same process, and he was particularly worried

because he knew that cameras were about to descend on Hay Farm. So here I am, back where I was two decades ago, with the orchard's new guardians, Ray and Moth. And the trees which grow over 40 different varieties of Apple have definitely aged better than I have. The BBC series Rick Steyer, in Cornwall had arranged to come and film at Haye right then, just after the publication of landlines in the autumn of 2022.

Bill told me he was so confused and upset at this point that he couldn't bring himself to go to the farm while it was being recorded. Moss, you've got this terminal illness, is it? Yes, it is. But I'm still going strong, thanks for it to walk in the coast path. There was that unbelievable moment when we realised that Moth's health was improving, in ways we'd been told, just weren't possible.

Rick Stein's Cornwall program is unusual because it offers rare footage of moth. I've asked for an interview from the couple countless times and they've been reluctant to engage with me. I feel like I've got to know the public Rainer a bit because she's done hundreds of interviews, but moth hardly ever appears in public. That said, watching the Rick Stein footage, they both seem at ease. In one scene, Moth squats down, picking apples from under the trees. In another, he shows Rick how the old-fashioned cider press works. It looks like hard work.

Turning the lever takes a lot of strength. Rainer doesn't look like she's up for the job, but Moth seems to be enjoying it. A screw thread in the attic is turned by hand to lower the press, piling 80 tonnes of pressure onto the straw cheese below. Hold! And if I can just draw your attention to the hole here in the wall, the presses of the past would take the stave end of this stuff and just rub it in the old lime plaster of the wall.

Just to give it a bit of a coating, very much like you would chalk the end of a snooker cube. Amazing. And it's straight into the centre sprocket. And it's just a way of controlling the rate of compression, yes. Except it's exactly the kind of work Bill says the couple hadn't been doing all the time they were staying there. And the cider Rick Stein drank on the TV?

Yeah, that was made by the young couple who Ray and Moth strenuously tried to keep away from the farm. And yet, there they are on national television, pretending they've been running a cider-making business. Then, just two weeks later, Bill gets a really surprising email out the blue. Rainer and Moth are handing in their notice. Dear Bill, Moth's health. must be our main focus. So it is with great sadness we are giving notice

of the ending of our tenancy agreement. I am aware that our arrangement runs for another 12 months, but due to Moth's health considerations, we will be leaving at the earliest opportunity. It might see Moth driving a Land Rover. The day they left, I saw them driving away with the car packed,

because I was on my horse going somewhere else, I think. But I never saw them again. Bill had driven to Hay one day hoping to say goodbye, but he found the house empty. They'd left the keys under the mat. You know I said Bill was reluctant to speak on this podcast? Well, if I'm honest, I don't think it was just the media attention that put him off. I think it might also have been something to do with the fact that Bill had become so close to Rainer and Moth.

Just like millions of readers around the world, he'd opened his heart to them. Unlike those readers, he'd also opened his life to them. He felt profoundly hurt, but also unnerved, because he'd let them in for almost five years, and now he wasn't even sure he knew who they were. A year passes, and one day Bill's phone rings. On the other end is a lady from North Wales, Maxine, who's been receiving all those letters in Rainer and Moth's old house near Potheli.

The two exchanged stories, and when Bill tells her that the couple suddenly upped and left, the first thing she asks is, How much do they owe you? Bill says the utilities were left in a bit of a mess and lost revenue on the farm cost him tens of thousands of pounds. But really, it's the emotional cost that's upset him the most. After they left, Bill watched as Rainer Wynn continued to do the media rounds. He watched as Moth entered the London Marathon. On his just-giving page, the couple wrote how he lives with corticose or degeneration.

A film version of the salt path was commissioned with Jason Isaacs and Gillian Anderson starring as Moth and Raina Wynne. Their fame showed no sign of waning. But it's almost always Rainer that's out there speaking for both of them. Moth is hardly ever seen. A man who by most medical accounts, should have been dead six to eight years ago. Rainer and Moth have spent years, three books and a film telling the same story,

that he nearly dies and then hikes his way back to health. You've only so many walks you can go on. There's only so many miracle cures before CBD takes hold, 18 years to have it. It's a long time. Maybe Tim has had enough. He can't enjoy the same. the spoils of their fortunes now

he can't enjoy what they've earned if he has to keep hiding away he can't be interviewed so he's become always like a prisoner of this successful book because people will be looking going oh that's him we recognise him but he looks alright so they're a bit trapped aren't they coming up in episode four

I believed it I wanted to believe it that maybe just maybe I need to sort up my game and fight it Do medical miracles happen? No. It is dangerous with a condition which is as severe as this to promote an idea that Australian sex exercise could reversal cure it.

Cruel. Give them false hope. Give them false hope. It's cruel. Rainer Wyn responded to the observer's investigation with a following statement. The salt path lays bare the physical and spiritual journey Moth and I share. an experience that transformed us completely and altered the course of our lives. This is the true story of our journey. On her website, Raina goes on to say, Moth was diagnosed with CBD.

This is a fact. The suggestion that Moth has made up his illness is utterly vile, unfair and false. I have never sought to offer medical advice in my books or suggest that walking might be some sort of miracle cure for CBS. I'm simply charting Moth's own personal journey and battle with his illness and what has helped him. My books have become a record of his health, through the movement issues, to the times on our very long walks when those symptoms have improved. The effect of the suggestion that Moth has made up this condition has been absolutely traumatising for him.

Suggestions made by people who do not know him have never met him and have never seen his medical record. Thanks for listening to The Walkers, The Real Salt Path. It was reported by me, Chloe Hajimuthayo. The series producer was Matt Russell, music supervision and sound design was by Carla Patella. The editor was Jasper Corbett. Thank you for listening to The Walkers. We hope you're enjoying the podcast so far. You can listen to all seven episodes today by subscribing to The Observer.

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