Achi news desk-
Theater director Richard Baron has spent a lot of time uncovering the incredible life of Nan Shepherd. He shares his story with us ahead of his new play which depicts the incredible life of the Scottish writer. Nan Shepherd: Naked and Shameless will be shown for the first time at Pitlochry Festival Theater in May.
During the Covid lockdown in 2021 I saw the striking image of Nan Shepherd on a £5 note and decided to find out more about her by buying her masterpiece and her so-called love letter to the Cairngorm mountains, The Living Heath.
Nan Shepherd’s fame was almost entirely posthumous. The Living Heathalthough it was written during the Second World War, it was not published in a drawer until 1977 and Nan himself died in 1981, long before the book had its worldwide success and was translated into (from the end) 16 languages.
Nan’s photographic portrait did not appear on a Royal Bank of Scotland bank note until 2016 and even then the famous image of the Viking princess of her younger self was not typical; she probably dressed up like that to amuse the photographer by improvising a jeweled headband out of a reel of old film.
Richard Baron, Director of Nan Shepherd: Naked and Unashamed.
Further research revealed that Nan had been famous for a short period in the early 1930s, mainly for a trilogy of modernist novels set in her home county of Aberdeen. When we heard that she was known for a time as the ‘Scottish Virginia Woolf’ but that she suddenly stopped writing in the mid-1930s, the story became more and more interesting.
‘She had an appetite for walking alone in the Cairngorms’
We set about reading the novels, The Wood Quarry, The Weatherhouse and A Pass in The Grampiansand one collection of Nan’s poetry, In the Cairngorms, and realized that there was a mystery at the heart of her memoir. How and why did he come to write The Living Mountain, after a long silence, and why did she never share it or have it published until she was in her eighties? Nan compounded the mystery by either burning or censoring her more personal letters, many of them from the great Scottish writers and philosophers of her day.
We then realized that it was the first novel of this extraordinary trilogy, the semi-autobiographical Coed y Xwarel (1928), predated the famous Lewis Grassic Gibbon Sunset Song by four years, and despite being placed in the same time and place, he did not receive anything similar to the same recognition.
Our research found that part of the reason was the male-dominated central London literary scene (Nan had tried 13 publishers before her first book was accepted) but also that Grassic Gibbon had written a particularly scathing review of Nan’s work, after and, coincidentally, she never wrote another novel.
Nan in her 30s.
In many ways her books and wide reading reflect her response to all these subjects and her rebellious streak, shown in her passion for walking alone in the Cairngorms, also included her rejection of religion formal at some point in the 1920s, her occupation as unconventional. a teacher and her decision not to marry which would have meant her giving up her beloved teaching job.
‘He regularly visited the Edinburgh Festival from 1946 onwards’
Instead, she realized that she had the independence and freedom to live and write in a way that many women of her time were denied. It is believed that Nan was romantically involved in John Macmurray’s open marriage and that she favoured, or was very open to, what was ‘new’ artistically.
There is evidence of her adventurous taste in her enthusiasm for regularly visiting the Edinburgh Festival from its inception in 1946.
Apart from her love of hill walking, Nan was well-read (her bookshelves included Das Kapital by Karl Marx and Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler), passionate about Scottish literature, ancient and modern but also inclusive and very eclectic in taste.
She championed the controversial, highly intelligent (and perhaps at times incomprehensible) poet, Hugh MacDiarmid, for his visionary insight, while also writing to her artistic counterpart, the great Highland novelist Neil Gunn, ‘the art that is important as a big part of living like eating porridge and loving your lover and getting excited about your holidays.’
Nan was a passionate college lecturer for over thirty years, believing that teaching is a community activity and therefore, like Miss Jean Brodie, often unconventional in her approach. Full marks are given not for passing a written exam but for attending class regularly and actively contributing to lessons. These lessons could include community singing, poetry reading or hikes in the Cairngorms. An essay topic may not be an academic topic but to write about yourself.
‘The public are keen to know more about Nan and her life’
The stage production has taken about a year to develop as more and more is written about Nan and new discoveries are made about her life and career and her influence.
As the play is at times set in a classroom, with the audience becoming Nan Shepherd’s students, the play does not come fully alive until the actors can interact with their Pitlochry Festival Theater audience. We will only know if the story is on the opening night of the 24th May Nan Shepherd: Naked and Shameless is told clearly and entertainingly, so that will be an extremely exciting litmus test for Firebrand as a writing, directing and acting team. We are told that ticket sales for the run are already doing well so that acts as an additional spur for us to do the subject justice, as we know the public are keen to know more about Nan and her life and ‘to influences by experiencing something good. a night at the theatre.
Audiences can expect a lively and moving theatrical journey, full of humour, romance, poetry and song which will hopefully engage all the senses. We hope that those who make the trip to beautiful Pitlochry, situated on the edge of the Cairngorms National Park, will be thoroughly entertained when they meet the extraordinary Nan Shepherd ‘in person’ and leave the show eager to read his fiction and poetry as well. like being inspired to travel to the mountain, perhaps in more ways than one.
Nan Shepherd: Naked and Shamelesspremiering at Pitlochry Festival Theater 24 May – 6 July 2024. Call 01796 484626 or visit www.pitlochryfestivaltheatre.com
Read more news stories here.
Subscribe to read the latest issue of Scottish Field.
