Fame is fickle. Today, you can see the face of Nan Shepherd, set against a backdrop of Highland wilderness, on your Royal Bank of Scotland £5 notes. She and scientist Mary Somerville were the first women the bank had ever featured. During lockdown, The Living Mountain, her 80-page account of walking in the Cairngorms, attracted a new generation of readers. When so many of us felt a longing for the great outdoors, Shepherd’s poetic vision became a form of escape.
Yet in her lifetime, whether by accident or design, the author went from popularity to obscurity. Born in East Peterculter near Aberdeen in 1893, she was one of the first female graduates of the University of Aberdeen before becoming a lecturer in English at Aberdeen Training Centre for Teachers (later Aberdeen College of Education). [READ MORE]