Chloe Hadjimatheou

She'd met Raina Wynne once before, in 2019, when they were both up for awards for their writing.

Ruth's for fiction, Raina's for non-fiction.

Around two decades ago, Ruth used to be an English teacher in London, but she dreamed of being an author.

So she quit and moved to Cornwall to follow her two great passions, writing and riding.

Ruth is about as horse-mad as you'd get.

Since then, she's become a pretty successful author, with more than 25 novels published, mostly historical romance.

Back in 2020, she and her partner Christian bought a defunct old riding school off Bill, which had once been part of Hay Farm.

They planned to renovate it, but meanwhile she could keep horses and write.

So when Bill told her who her neighbours were going to be, she was sure that she and Raina would get on.

But Bill warned her from rushing over there.

Cooper was the man Raina Wynne claimed had conned her out of her home in Wales.

She'd written about how hard she found it to trust people after that.

But actually, when Ruth finally got the courage to knock on her door, she found a friendly, rather sweet woman, maybe a bit shy.

It was during that strange time a few years back between Covid lockdowns when people were emerging in different stages of caution.

When Moth got back from the shops, he didn't seem to have concerns about social distancing, so Ruth stayed and chatted.

Ruth and her partner Christian had read the salt path and they were conscious of Moth's condition, so they'd regularly check in to see if he needed a hand with anything.

Moth and Rainer had already been living there 18 months and they seemed to have things pretty much in hand.

They ended up at Hay Farm because Bill Cole, the farm's owner, was so moved by the salt path that he reached out to Rainer on Twitter a few months after the book was published in the autumn of 2018.

I've spent months chatting to Bill about what happened.

I published an article about him in the Observer newspaper, but ultimately he decided he didn't want to take part in this podcast.