My recollection of Nan Shepherd is rather faint but I wrote about the quiet late life (and literary afterlife) of my mother’s friend and teacher, prompted by the new correspondence edited by @kerriandrewsuk.bsky.social
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Fascinating diary made real by your local knowledge and mother's friendship. Thanks for posting. Mention of the many tributes that've emerged - there's a wonderful album of songs inspired by The Living Mountain by Scottish singer songwriter Jenny Sturgeon. https://jennysturgeon.bandcamp.com/album/the-living-mountain
Hi Fraser, Nina sent me this for my breakfast read, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. In 1984 I was definitely listening to Big Country. Did eleven year old you read The Living Mountain in 1984!?
Interesting piece. Many of the best-known 'renaissance' writers were, by our contemporary definition, 'snobs': MacDiarmid and Grassic Gibbon certainly were. I wonder what part their rural background played in that (or maybe that's my own biases emerging?).
Yes, arguably more true of MacDiarmid & LGG! Tbf I don’t think Adam Watson’s judgment is esp reliable but the perspective of her students is interesting for me. And I guess it wouldn’t be worth mentioning were it not that she’s become such an icon of inclusion ... I wanted to widen the conversation.
Yes absolutely. I think the environmental ramifications of TLM have been somewhat over egged in our era. Understandable. But it arguably distorts a clearer picture of the author's contexts and perspectives.
I guess the late rapturous reception (to a degree merited) will find a more settled equilibrium in due course. I think the letters are useful in that regard, and the notes in this volume also help toward that end too.
Enjoyed reading this. By strange coincidence I was stumbling around the Quarry Wood in the dark this evening at a night orienteering event and this popped up on my timeline when I got home.
There’s some great wee nooks and crannies there, not least the quarries themselves. Interesting that the term ‘quarry wood’ seems to have been dropped for Foggieton.
Yes, the orienteering map is called Foggieton. I prefer Quarry Wood, but there is another Quarry Wood near Elgin that is well used for orienteering, so possibly they wanted to avoid confusion. Was good fun negotiating the quarries in the dark!
The growing up in Cults bits were very interesting to me. Her house must've been not far from my turning-point when I take a walk from my flat along the railway line to the bench dedicated to Bella Thomson (of Thomson of Cults VW dealer I assume).
Not sure of the location of that bench but the garden slopes down to the railway line, near the end of Belvidere Rd. Thomson was the old feudal proprietor and I guess there are many branches of that family – I have (not fond) memories of harvesting for 'Tattie Thomson' on what is now the bypass.
That's just where the bench is - a bit by Belvidere Rd where there's a grass patch at the side of the line with the bench and a terrific view up Deeside. Sorry to bring back memories of childhood tattie howking! My only link with them is I bought a VW campervan from them in 1979.
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What a line! 👏
* growing up in Cults
* the quarry wood (pictured)
* Aberdeenshire and North Sea oil
* and the years when Nan Shepherd was published but unread.
Credit to @slipshodspeller.bsky.social whose work was an important source.