We had lost everything except our children and each other, but we had the wet grass and the rhythm of the sea on the rocks. Could we survive on that? We knew the answer, but to give up on this and return to the world didn’t seem like the answer either.
When Raynor Winn’s 2018 memoir of homeless camping along the British coastline was awarded £10,000 for the inaugural RSL Christopher Bland Prize, she celebrated with a cup of tea and a biscuit—a luxury after two summers of hardship and ostracization as a rough sleeper along England’s 630-mile Southwest Coast Path. With her invalid husband, just diagnosed with a rare and fatal disease, she traversed the famously rugged shoreline familiar to Poldark viewers, camping along the narrow trail bordering cliffside estates. At fifty years old, they were subjected to starvation, sunstroke, blisters, and verbal abuse, but with privation came a personal reformation of strength and hope born of natural beauty and the occasional kindness of strangers.
This selection, yet another misguided recommendation as a follow-up to the midlife rebirth tale of A Year by the Sea (reviewed February 2) was beyond depressing in my opinion, but morbid disbelief kept me listening. I’m not sure I could have turned 270 pages to see what Mother Nature and humanity would throw at them next. Most distressing was their blithe disregard which, while easing their discomfort, made me question their priorities and sanity. But that is my prerogative as an older reader, and the story has a happy ending of sorts. To appreciate the remarkable woman behind this remarkable tale, watch this author interview.