Play aims to unravel the mystery of poet Nan Shepherd’s masterwork

Nan Shepherd, nan Scottish writer and quality writer whose vivid reflections connected her treks done nan Cairngorms person brought posthumous acclaim, is celebrated successful a caller play that intends to unravel nan enigma of why her masterwork remained unpublished successful a drawer for 30 years.

Shepherd is recognisable to galore from her striking airs connected nan Royal Bank of Scotland’s £5 statement aft preceding Jane Austen by a twelvemonth to go nan first female writer connected British insubstantial currency. While she enjoyed bursts of nationalist nickname passim her lifetime, it is since her decease successful 1981, and the 2011 republication of her seminal meditation connected nan Cairngorm range, The Living Mountain, that she has reached a world audience.

“It’s a rollercoaster from complete personage to utter neglect,” said Dr Kerri Andrews, who edited Shepherd’s correspondence for publication past twelvemonth and worked connected nan play, Nan Shepherd: Naked and Unashamed, which is directed by Richard Baron, successful co-production pinch Pitlochry Festival theatre.

Shepherd, who was calved successful nan colony of West Cults, adjacent Aberdeen, successful 1893, had established her literate estimation by her early 30s pinch a trio of modernist novels, exploring women’s shifting roles successful agrarian communities, that drew comparisons pinch Virginia Woolf.

The play reflects each nan facets of Shepherd nan author, teacher, hillwalker, friend and lover. Photograph: Estate of Nan Shepherd

Then followed a postulation of poetry, In nan Cairngorms, and The Living Mountain, completed during nan 2nd world war, which past “went into a drawer” – arsenic she later described it – for much than 3 decades aft a publisher’s rejection.

“She had immense early occurrence successful nan 20s and 30s pinch her poesy and novels, pinch group reference and penning astir her. Then it’s for illustration she drops disconnected nan look of nan earth,” said Andrews.

“But of people she doesn’t. She writes to nan writer Hugh MacDiarmid that she had “gone dumb”, but she had different things successful her life – her school and lectures, her support for younger writers, for illustration Jessie Kesson. She had a lifelong committedness to Scottish literature.”

Charting important episodes and relationships successful Shepherd’s life, nan play endeavours to bespeak each these facets of nan author, teacher, hillwalker, friend and lover.

There are contradictions too, said Baron. She travelled wide and publication deeply, from Marx to Buddhism, but only ever lived successful nan aforesaid village. “She had a rebellious nature, going retired connected her ain into nan hills, and besides engaged successful a emotion triangle pinch her champion friend’s husband. She was doing things extracurricular of what you mightiness expect from a middle-class teacher.”

As to why nan manuscript languished for truthful long, and what prompted Shepherd to yet resurrect it successful 1977, erstwhile it was softly published by nan University of Aberdeen, wherever she is remembered for giving theatrical lectures connected lit good into her 80s?

Shepherd pictured pinch a young boy. She was an intensely backstage female who alternatively relished her retreat from nan spotlight. Photograph: Estate of Nan Shepherd

One mentation is that she was irritated by a header connected a last question and reply she gave to a section newspaper, labelling her arsenic “the brilliant who gave up”. Others propose that Shepherd, an intensely backstage female who recovered fulsome praise discomfiting, alternatively relished her retreat from nan spotlight and arm’s-length domiciled of mentor.

But her determination to yet people The Living Mountain cemented her legacy. Shepherd was besides a writer of unfettered sensuality – luxuriating successful nan senses and detailing beingness pleasance astatine a clip erstwhile women were not encouraged to stock specified experiences truthful candidly. In The Living Mountain she describes “dried mud flats, sun-warmed, person a delicious touch, cushioned and smooth; truthful has agelong writer astatine morning, basking successful nan sun, but still cool and bedewed erstwhile nan ft sinks into it, for illustration nutrient pouring to a caller flavour successful nan mouth”.

She besides suggests “a overmuch much humble, equitable and gentle measurement of interacting pinch nature”, said Andrews, “that is not macho aliases astir climbing nan highest peaks”.

As Shepherd herself put it: “To purpose for nan highest constituent is not nan only measurement to climb a mountain.”