12 h. ago The kindness of strangers: I was five years old when a woman I’ll never know gave me an extravagant doll

As a child of refugees I rarely enjoyed the thrill of a new toy. She must have noticed the longing in my eyesRead more in the kindness of strangers seriesWhen I was very young, my family and I emigrated from Albania to Melbourne. As a child of refugees settling in Australia after the second world war, I experienced the searing poverty that myriads of displaced people dealt with as they tried to rebuild lives in far away, unfamiliar places. As a result, my brothers and sisters and I very rarely enjoyed the magic and thrill that come when a child gets a new toy.One day – I must have been no more than five – I was wandering through the local town hall with my mother. Some sort of fair was in full swing and I happened upon a table where, for a mere penny, I could try my luck to win a doll. I didn’t have a penny, but I did have a fervent wish to have a doll – particularly the beautiful one with the gloriously extravagant light blue dress! Continue reading...

Politics

7 d. ago The kindness of strangers: she bought a new sim card for my mum and installed it on her phone

Dad was in hospital in Spain; Mum couldn’t speak Spanish and didn’t know how to contact me, so I reached out to an expat community on FacebookRead more in the kindness of strangers seriesOne week before I was due to fly to Sweden to see my son get married, I got a frantic, jumbled message from Mum. My elderly parents were desperate to attend the big wedding but as they were both in their 80s, they’d decided it would be more comfortable to take a cruise ship from Australia to Europe than to fly. They’d set off two months before the rest of us.Mum’s message asked me to call her. “We’re being thrown off the ship,” she wrote. “Your father’s in an ambulance – I think it’s pneumonia. We’re somewhere in Spain.” Continue reading...

Politics

9 d. ago The Guardian view on The Salt Path scandal: memoirists have a duty to tell the truth | Editorial

In an era of misinformation, trust in publishers is more important than ever“All autobiographies are lies,” George Bernard Shaw wrote in 1898. “I do not mean unconscious, unintentional lies: I mean deliberate lies.” The veracity of autobiographical writing is under scrutiny once again following allegations that the bestselling memoir The Salt Path is not quite the “unflinchingly honest” account of one couple’s triumph over adversity as billed.Even if you are not one of the two million people to have bought the book, and haven’t seen the film released this summer, you will doubtless know the story of a couple’s 630-mile journey along the South Coast Way after facing homelessness and a diagnosis of terminal illness. Published in 2018, The Salt Path struck a chord during lockdown as readers discovered the solace of walking and nature during the pandemic. But this tale of wild-camping and the kindness of strangers, not to mention the seemingly miraculous healing powers of...

Politics

1 week ago Inside the Salt Path controversy: ‘Scandal has stalked memoir since the genre was invented’

Raynor Winn’s bestselling book is far from the first time a true story has been called into question after publication. But how does it happen? And should readers really feel betrayed?“The Salt Path is an unflinchingly honest, inspiring and life-affirming true story,” reads the description of Raynor Winn’s bestselling memoir on its publisher Penguin Random House’s website.Which is unfortunate wording if accusations made at the weekend turn out to be true: an investigation by the Observer alleged that the 2018 book – which has recently been adapted into a film starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs – is not all that it seems. Winn writes in The Salt Path that she and her husband, Moth, had their home repossessed due to an investment in a friend’s company that went on to fail. With nowhere to live, as she tells it, the couple decided to walk the length of the South West Coast Path, wild camping along the way and relying on the kindness of strangers. The Observer piece suggests Win...

Politics

1 week ago Whatever the truth of The Salt Path, I know why people wanted to believe it | Gaby Hinsliff

As questions are asked about the bestselling memoir, is the demand for hope-over-hardship stories outstripping reality?Was the story always, in hindsight, just a little too good to be true? A middle-aged couple, brutally down on their luck after bankruptcy and a terminal diagnosis, escape their troubles on an epic walk round the South West Coast Path, finding comfort along the way in the kindness of strangers. Billed as an “honest and life-affirming” story of prevailing against the odds, The Salt Path became first a bestseller and then a blockbuster film, starring a windswept Gillian Anderson. Though it was never really my thing, I knew plenty of people for whom The Salt Path genuinely resonated, with its romantic central theme of being (as the film’s director, Marianne Elliott, put it) “reformed by the elements” of a blustery English seascape.If it seemed a bit unlikely that a dying man could be rejuvenated by a strenuous trek involving wild camping in all weathers – well, getting ...

Politics

2 w. ago The kindness of strangers: I used to hate being judged, but then a woman on a train praised my parenting

I saw that my toddler was annoying some passengers but the words of encouragement made a stressful situation a lot more bearableRead more in the kindness of strangers seriesI had my eldest child when I was 19, and being a young mum can be tricky – I was used to feeling judged by other people in public.One evening, I was on a crowded train home in Melbourne at peak hour, which is also witching hour for toddlers. My two-year-old son just started losing it, so I was distracting him with silly noises and games. It was largely working and he was mostly laughing and squealing with delight. I registered that it was annoying some passengers, but the alternative would have been much louder and annoying for us all. Making matters worse, no one offered me a seat, so we were standing up and bumping into other people, who were getting pissed off. Continue reading...

Events

3 w. ago The kindness of strangers: stranded on a deserted back road, three bikies swapped my busted tyre

Just like in a movie, they pulled up around me, engines bubbling ominously, all leather and gang colours. I thought, ‘This is it – they’re gonna kill me’Read more in the kindness of strangers seriesIt was late, dark and a storm was brewing. I’d been helping a friend do some work at a property in the Colo valley, north-west of Sydney, and was heading home at about 11pm. As I was driving across the Colo River Bridge, there was a sudden, loud bang. I’d hit a pothole and my front driver’s side tyre had blown, just about swallowing my hatchback with it.It was 1988 and, in those days, the area around Colo was pretty rough. It was full of bikies – proper bikies, not the drug-running kind that don’t even have bikes nowadays. The back roads around there are mainly deserted and can be eerie at the best of times. Continue reading...

Transport

3 w. ago The kindness of strangers: when I was stranded on a deserted back road, three bikies changed my busted tyre

Just like in a movie, they pulled up around me, engines bubbling ominously, all leather and gang colours. I thought, ‘This is it – they’re gonna kill me’ Read more in the kindness of strangers seriesIt was late, dark and a storm was brewing. I’d been helping a friend do some work at a property in the Colo valley, north-west of Sydney, and was heading home about 11pm. As I was driving across the Colo River Bridge, there was a sudden, loud bang. I’d hit a pothole and my front driver’s side tyre had blown, just about swallowing my hatchback with it.It was 1988 and, in those days, the area around Colo was pretty rough. It was full of bikies – proper bikies, not the drug-running kind that don’t even have bikes nowadays. The back roads around there are mainly deserted and can be eerie at the best of times. Continue reading...

Transport

4 w. ago The kindness of strangers: a gentle flight attendant made me feel I wasn’t alone

He didn’t try to tell me everything would be all right, because it wouldn’t have been. If he hadn’t been there, I would have been sobbing on my ownRead more in the kindness of strangers seriesI’d completely forgotten it was my little sister’s 40th birthday, so that morning I hurriedly arranged to send some flowers to her house. She died before she could receive them. My sister died at 11am and I got a text from the florist saying they’d delivered the flowers at 11.30am – how ridiculous. They must have sat on her doorstep for days.I got the call as I was walking through the doors at Emerald airport in Queensland, about to fly home to Brisbane. My stepdad rang me and said, “I need to talk to you about something – your sister’s died.” I was like, “What? What do you mean?” I told him I was about to hop on a plane home and that I’d call him when I got on the ground. I hung up, stunned. Continue reading...

Politics