The author of The Salt Path has described enduring some of the "hardest days" of her life as she defended her memoir against claims that parts of it were fabricated.
Raynor Winn’s story, now a film starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs, tells how she and her husband, Moth, walked the South West Coast Path after losing their home.
The memoir also recounts how Moth was diagnosed with a neurological condition.
But The Observer newspaper, which said the couple’s legal names are Sally and Timothy Walker, reported that Winn may have misrepresented the events that led to the couple losing their home and that experts had doubts over Moth having corticobasal degeneration (CBD).
On Wednesday, Winn posted clinic letters on Instagram addressed to Timothy Walker, which she said showed that "he is treated for CBD/S and has been for many years".
She wrote: "The last few days have been some of the hardest of my life. Heart breaking accusations that Moth has made up his illness have been made, leaving us devastated."
In a statement on her website, she said that the article was "grotesquely unfair, highly misleading and seeks to systematically pick apart my life".
She added: "The Salt Path is about what happened to Moth and me, after we lost our home and found ourselves homeless on the headlands of the south west.
"It’s not about every event or moment in our lives, but rather about a capsule of time when our lives moved from a place of complete despair to a place of hope.
"The journey held within those pages is one of salt and weather, of pain and possibility. And I can’t allow any more doubt to be cast on the validity of those memories, or the joy they have given so many."
In The Salt Path, the couple lose their house due to a bad business investment.
But The Observer reported that the couple lost their home after an accusation that Winn had stolen thousands of pounds from her employer.
It also said that it had spoken to medical experts who were sceptical about Moth having CBD, given his lack of acute symptoms and his apparent ability to reverse them.
Publishing house Penguin said it "undertook all the necessary pre-publication due diligence", including a contract with an author warranty about factual accuracy, and a legal read.
It added: "Prior to The Observer enquiry, we had not received any concerns about the book’s content."
Source: Press Association
