‘Saltlines’, a prose and music collaboration between bestselling author Raynor Winn and folk-roots supergroup The Gigspanner Big Band will arrive in Marlborough at the Memorial Hall on Thursday 30 May. A very different yet evocative blend with Raynor Wynn, author of best-selling The Salt Path (appeared at LitFest in 2019) and Folk-Roots favourites and regulars, Peter Knight’s Gigspanner Big Band.
It proves to be a very different and quite enchanting evening. Below is the text of a Q&A session, a conversation between Idgie Barnstorm and Raynor Wynn, giving a bit of insight into Raynor’s inspiration for creating The Salt Path, and how Saltlines came about…..
1. What can audiences expect from Saltlines – without giving too much away?
Saltlines has a powerful originality. By weaving music and song from the south west with poetic storytelling, we take audiences on a very special journey – through the themes of nature and heritage, love and loss. It’s quite a stunning evening and something not to be missed.
2. The show is related to your memoir The Salt Path, detailing your experiences of walking the 630 mile South West Coast path after some difficult personal circumstances. Can you tell us a bit about your experience and what led you to write The Salt Path?
Just days after we were served with an eviction notice from our home of 20 years, my husband Moth was diagnosed with a terminal illness. As we were about to leave our home for the for the last time, I saw a book in a packing case – a book about walking the South West Coast Path. In that awful moment, as we were about to become homeless, the idea of filling a rucksack and just walking seemed like the most obvious thing to do. The Salt Path is the story of that 630 mile walk and of the months we spent living wild on the headlands of the Coast Path.
3. How did the collaboration between yourself and The Gigspanner Big Band come about?
Deborah Knight, Peter’s wife and manager of the band, had read The Salt Path, and realised that such an enigmatic stretch of land and coastline must have inspired many musical compositions. The Band picked up the idea, exploring the musical history through resources such as Cecil Sharp House, finding songs and pieces of music that originated from the south west – some well-known, others long forgotten, but all drawing a thread of connection from the past to the future. Then they got in touch, asking me to join them by creating new words drawn from my own experience of that landscape. When you’re invited to collaborate with such diversly gifted musicians as Gigspanner Big Band, you can’t possibly say no.
4. What have you enjoyed most in developing and performing Saltlines?
As an author I mostly work alone, so to work alongside the band in the development of Saltlines has given me a rare experience of artistic community and collaboration – a space in which to learn and grow. But to watch this group of musicians take a traditional song and lift it into the present, to transform it until it speaks of generations past and ones yet to come, through an almost unspoken passion and understanding of the music itself – well, that’s been the greatest privilege.
5. What are some of the biggest challenges you faced in creating this piece?
Writing prose for stage performance was a totally new experience for me, having previously written mainly in long form. Finding expression in a few lines rather than chapters made me think in completely different ways – artistically it was a challenge, but unexpectedly liberating. For the band the challenge was to combine words and music to create a completely immersive audio journey – something they’ve done, seamlessly.
6. The Salt Path has been turned into a film starring Gillian Anderson and Jason Isaacs to be released later this year. Tell us about the experience of having your personal experiences dramatised and performed by actors.
It’s not very often that you have Gillian Anderson round for tea, or show her how to pack a tent, while Jason Isaacs sits on your worktop eating your burnt homemade scones. Surreal is a very over-used word, but in this case, I don’t think there’s any other word for it!
7. How do you prepare for performances?
We do a sound-check late afternoon, then everyone does their own thing. The band are incredible professionals with the confidence of long careers as performing artists – for me it’s a completely different matter! I drink a lot of tea, run up and down the stairs, go for a walk, talk to strangers in the street, anything I can to keep the nerves at bay and my mind off the coming performance!
8. What has been your favourite highlight from the tours of Saltlines?
That would have to be on the first tour, when we performed at the Minack Theatre in Cornwall – an outdoor theatre cut into the cliffs just below the Coast Path, in the far west of the county. Saltlines speaks of the very essence of the coastline, so to perform it as the setting sun turned the sea into in a myriad of colours, accompanied by the sound of waves breaking on the cliffs below and the gulls circling overhead, was perfect. Towards the end of the evening, as Hannah was singing her beautiful new Salt Song, it felt as if we were still walking the headlands with our rucksacks and had just stopped for one magical moment on the cliff – as if that journey had never quite ended. It was an unforgettable night.
9. What advice would you give someone who wanted to write a memoir?
Find the core of what you’re trying to express, but don’t tell me about it. Show me it in such a way that I can experience it with you – let me inhabit your space and feel what you felt.
10. What do you hope audiences will take away from this show?
Audiences have talked of leaving the show feeling ‘mesmerised’ and ‘transported’. I’d like them to leave Saltlines with a feeling that stays with them – the sense that part of them will always be walking ‘under a sun that’s always warm, by a sea that’s always blue, through air thick with salt…..’
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