How Gillian Anderson 'scruffed up' to play me on the big screen

When Raynor Winn was told Gillian Anderson would be playing her in the film adaptation of her bestselling book, she thought the actress was far too glamorous for her character. But after seeing the award-winning US actress's portrayal, Raynor is now convinced, joking: "I think she 'scruffs up' really well in playing me. She's fantastic."

Anderson, who played Margaret Thatcher in The Crown, was cast alongside Jason Isaacs as Raynor's husband, Moth, in The Salt Path, her hugely-popular memoir which has now been turned into a movie. It's the life-affirming true story of a 50-something couple who are left homeless and penniless days before Moth is diagnosed with a rare, terminal disease.

Their response was to embark on a 630-mile walk along the length of the South West Coast Path. Camping in the wild with all their possessions on their backs, they survived on £48 a week - sometimes much less - eating mostly instant noodles while washing their few clothes in seawater. But their deep love for each other kept them going through horrendous storms and stifling heat.

Snaking along the often craggy coastlines of Somerset to Dorset, via Devon and Cornwall, they enjoyed memorable experiences and encountered a stream of colourful characters. As the miles slipped by, they marveled at the nature all around them from seals to swallows and shoals of shimmering fish to fallow deer.

"I was in the garden when I was called and told Gillian would be playing me in the film," says Raynor. "I wondered how she was going to portray me in my most raw moments wearing a pair of cut-off leggings and my hair like a bird's nest. She's so gorgeous and I most certainly was not. But when I saw her on the set, I thought, 'No, she's perfect because she had captured that sense of being lost in life so well'.

"And when we were told, who was playing Moth, we reacted like everyone would, saying 'Jason Isaacs - he's Malfoy's dad from the Harry Potter films!'"

To help the two actors better understand their roles before shooting began, they spent a day together in Cornwall where Raynor and Moth now live.

"As soon as we met Jason, he was so focused on capturing Moth as a person, how he moved, reacted and dealt with things," says Raynor, 62. "We talked about the book, the path and the emotion behind some of the scenes. We also put up the tent and ate ice creams with them and did the whole Cornish experience.

"When I first saw the preview screening, there were moments that if I glanced away and then looked back at the screen, it was almost as if it was Moth talking. I came out a total emotional mess as it had caught some scenes I hadn't revisited in that intensity, so seeing them on the screen was like being back in that moment. Moth felt the same."

Early in the book, bailiffs are outside the couple's Welsh farm hammering on the door. It followed a bad business investment which went wrong and led to them being served with an eviction notice after a long court battle. Only five days after being made homeless in 2013, Moth, then 53, received a devastating diagnosis.

What started off as pain and numbness in his left shoulder which was originally thought to be a ligament injury, turned out to be a very little-known degenerative brain disease called corticobasal degeneration (CBD). It's a condition where movement, speech, memory and swallowing gradually worsen. A patient's remaining lifespan following the start of symptoms is usually between five to seven years.

"The main thing that stuck in my mind when Moth was diagnosed was that there was no treatment or cure," says Raynor. "Due to the very individual nature of CBD, we didn't know what to expect. So Moth became focused on doing physio exercises several times a day to try and improve his strength."

It was while cowering under the stairs with the bailiffs outside that Raynor first came up with the idea of the coastal walk. Without a home or livelihood, they had very few options, or indeed reasons, to stick around.

t's a complex neurological disorder which affects approximately five in every 100,000 of the population. About 10,000 in the UK live with this or a similar condition called progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP).

The usual onset is between the ages of 60 to 70 although it can affect people in their 40s.

On average it takes about three years for patients to be diagnosed as changes can be so gradual they're often mistaken for other neurological problems including Parkinson's or types of dementia, such as Alzheimer's.

The condition is often characterised by at first affecting one side before later spreading across the whole body.

The prime cause of CBD is an abnormal build-up of a protein called tau within the brain neurons which clumps together leading to cell dysfunction and death.

For more details about CBD and supporting the research appeal vist the

Setting off from Minehead, they constantly worried whether Moth would be able to manage the challenge. "At the start, we had some really difficult times because he was struggling and couldn't even put his coat on without help. Carrying a rucksack and walking those miles was tough," says Raynor. "Looking back I still don't quite know how he did it.

"But then, after we'd probably done about 200 miles, we started to realise he was moving much easier. It felt like a miracle because obviously CBD is a one-way journey, so to find that actually he'd taken a few steps back from that was almost unbelievable."

But while they wintered in a converted meat-packing shed, Moth's symptoms returned with his movement becoming stiff and awkward. Raynor continues: "When we began walking every day to complete the path, he improved again."

Her aim when she wrote The Salt Path, she reveals today, was very modest: "I wrote it just for Moth and didn't really intend for anybody else to read it."

She used the notes Moth had jotted down each evening in their well-thumbed guidebook as a starting point. After writing whenever he was out, she later tied it with string and gave it to her husband as a birthday present.

"I was trying to capture that path and that experience which had been such a powerful moment in our lives," recalls Raynor. "Moth was starting to forget the details of our walk and I really wanted to hold on to them for him."

But after their daughter Rowan read the manuscript, she urged Raynor to try and get it published. Raynor didn't think anybody would be interested, but the book has sold more than two million copies. It has also inspired many others to follow in their footsteps and walk the same coastal path or other routes, some like Moth with major health worries.

Raynor has also helped raise awareness about CBD through the PSP Association charity which has launched a £2million appeal called Understand to fund more research.

"It's a rare condition that most people have never heard of," says Raynor. "It's only diagnosed by ruling things out rather than any actual markers which would say that you have CBD, so people are at first often wrongly diagnosed with Parkinson's.

"Research is the primary aim. If more people with it can be diagnosed at an earlier stage, then maybe they can find something sooner on their journey which could help them."

Raynor says although Moth had a "difficult year" in 2024, he's now in a "much better place" and continues walking and doing daily physio.

"When we started our walk we were full of anxiety, bitterness, fear and all those negative emotions that felt like jagged stones in my pocket," reflects Raynor, whose fourth book is published in October.

"But by the time we reached the end of the walk, they felt more like sea-worn pebbles, as they've not gone away but are easier to carry. That's what that path gave me, to be less stressed by life."

The Salt Path is released across the UK on Friday May 30