{"id":35405,"date":"2024-03-08T14:55:32","date_gmt":"2024-03-08T13:55:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/038cdf2a-19a3-4004-8e3a-346364e417e4"},"modified":"2024-03-08T15:39:20","modified_gmt":"2024-03-08T14:39:20","slug":"nan-shepherd-revolutionised-nature-writing-with-the-living-mountain-this-is-her-story","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbccountryfile\/rss_feed\/nan-shepherd-revolutionised-nature-writing-with-the-living-mountain-this-is-her-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Nan Shepherd revolutionised nature writing with\u00a0The Living Mountain. This is her story"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the greatest books about Scottish mountains lay in a drawer for 30 years.\u00a0Charlotte Peacock profiles author Nan Shepherd and her enduring passion for the Cairngorms <\/p>

By Charlotte Peacock\n <\/p>

Published: Friday, 08 March 2024 at 13:55 PM<\/p>

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Nan Shepherd<\/strong> left an indelible mark on literature and nature writing. We explore Shepherd\u2019s enduring legacy, which lies in her profound connection with the Scottish landscape, particularly the Cairngorms. <\/strong><\/p>

Nan Shepherd’s beloved Cairngorm Mountains, in the Cairngorms National Park. The second of two national parks, it was established by the Scottish Parliament in 2003, after Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park, set up in 2002.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>

Who was Nan Shepherd?<\/h2>

Nan Shepherd was a Scottish writer, poet, and mountaineer, best known for her influential contributions to nature writing. <\/p>

Born in 1893 in Peterculter, near Aberdeen, she spent much of her life in the Scottish Highlands, particularly the Cairngorms<\/a>, which served as a profound source of inspiration for her work. <\/p>

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Happiest outdoors from an early age, her passion began in childhood. A youth spent roaming the Deeside hills made her well accustomed to hill-walking. But to climb the snow-gilded, granite mass towering at summits of over 1,200m (3,935ft) to the west of her home seemed to her \u201ca legendary task, which heroes, not men, accomplished. Certainly not children\u201d.<\/p>

Yet the Cairngorms haunted her and in June 1928, aged 35, Shepherd set foot on their ice-cold peaks for the first time. From there, she was hooked – at first, addicted to the tang of height, Shepherd scaled all six summits \u2013 some twice over.<\/p>

Whenever her role as lecturer in English at Aberdeen Training College allowed, she escaped to the mountains, and continued to do so long after retirement. She died in 1981. <\/p>

Nan Shepherd’s The Living Mountain<\/em><\/h2>

Her best-known work, The Living Mountain<\/em>, stands as a testament to her deep reverence for the mountains and remains a timeless celebration of the symbiotic relationship between nature and the human spirit.<\/p>

Her writings beautifully capture the intricate interplay between the natural world and human experience, offering readers a contemplative and poetic exploration of the wilderness she cherished.<\/p>

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The beauty of the Cairngorms was the inspiration behind Nan Shepherd’s masterpiece, The Living Mountain. Credit: Getty<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>

By exploring the Cairngorms recesses and discovering the mountain\u2019s inside \u2013 going into rather than up it \u2013 she began to know its essence. And it was knowledge that Shepherd was after (although, as she admits in The Living Mountain<\/em>, \u201cone never quite knows the mountain, nor oneself in relation to it\u201d).<\/p>

Hiking the Cairngorms<\/h3>

Shepherd would hike for days, foraging for berries and drinking from burns. She swam naked in lochs, trod barefoot on heather and, believing that \u201cno one can know the mountain completely who has not slept upon it\u201d, regularly slept out from May to October. If she did shelter under a friend\u2019s roof for the night, she would sleep near the door so she could prowl outside at all hours.<\/p>

Tall, lithe, eschewing the trousers adopted by other female climbers from the 1920s onwards, Shepherd cut an elegant figure even \u2018on the tramp\u2019 as she called it. She walked with friends, fellow members of the Deeside Field Club<\/a> and groups of students, who recall her lectures on \u201cthe sinfulness of dropping sweetie papers about the countryside\u201d. She never married, but joined a couple on their honeymoon when she heard they were headed for her beloved hills. Often, she walked alone with no particular destination in mind, happy just to be with the mountain \u201cas one visits a friend\u201d.<\/p>

Poetic prose<\/h3>

A distillation of her Cairngorms experiences, Shepherd wrote The Living Mountain<\/em> towards the close of the Second World War, by which time she was already a well-established author of Scottish Modernist literature and poetry. Her novels The Quarry Wood<\/em>, The Weatherhouse<\/em>, A Pass in the Grampians<\/em> and her poetry anthology In the Cairngorms <\/em>had been published by 1934. Now considered a classic of mountain literature, The Living Mountain<\/em> is a powerful, poetic piece of prose that has influenced contemporary authors such as Robert Macfarlane<\/a>, who says the work remade his vision of the Cairngorms.<\/p>

When was The Living Mountain <\/em>published?<\/h2>

The Living Mountain<\/em> was initially rejected for publication. More than 30 years passed before Shepherd retrieved the manuscript from a drawer, convinced the tale of her \u2018traffic of love\u2019 with a mountain was still valid. It was and remains so: the book finally appeared in 1977 and has recently been reprinted.<\/p>