by Nan Shepherd
When I can find a language for my feelings I can own them and not be owned by them. I can be enriched as mind and emotion work together instead of against each other. Art, all art, is good at this essential relationship, but literature finds us the words we need. And we need words. Not empty information. Not babble. Not data. We need a language capable of simple, beautiful expression yet containing complex thought that yields up our feelings instead of depriving us of them.
You only get that kind of language-possibility through reading at a high level; that doesn’t mean difficult or abstruse – quite the contrary. What we think of as difficult is often only unfamiliar, so it can take a bit of time to get into a book. Reading is becoming a casualty of the surf-syndrome of the Web. Reading is not skimming for information. Reading is a deeper drive.
Or a high climb.
Nan Shepherd talks about the exhilaration of altitude. The air is thinner. The body is lighter. But you have to acclimatise. You have to acclimatise yourself to books.
I am aware that reading is new. Mass literacy didn’t really start until the mid-nineteenth century, and we have had an uneasy relationship with reading ever since. Lots of people don’t really read and don’t want to read.
I think that is to do with education and cultural expectation. There is a wonderful group called The Reader Organisation, run by Jane Davis, who is a cross between Bob Geldof and Florence Nightingale, with a bit of Nanny McPhee thrown in. Her reason for living is to take reading into places where reading does not go – prisons, housing estates, children’s homes, etc. She works in Liverpool with people who have often had no real schooling. Her results are incredible. Kids calm down, guys grow up, harassed mothers find themselves mirrored in Sylvia Plath and Shakespeare. There is no dumbing down offered. Against received wisdom, by which I mean received stupidity, her crazy project works. The Reader has no direct government funding.
When I left home I didn’t find hope in realistic docu-drama narratives of deprived kids with no choices or chances. I found myself in Aladdin, Huck Finn, Heathcliff, the Little Prince, Henry IV. I identified with Hotspur because of course I identify with the outsider. And soon enough I found Albert Camus. L’Etranger.
I should add that my father could not read without running his finger along the line and saying the words out loud very slowly. My mother was very bright but had left school at fourteen. We had no books at home, and anyway I tried not to be at home. I was always in the Pennines, where we lived.
So it is not quite true that I am not a hillwalker.
Reading was not so important to my working-class community, unless it was the Bible. Reading the Bible means that you can read anything else – and it makes Shakespeare easy because the language of the King James Version is also the language of Shakespeare. We had a strong oral tradition in the north of England, and people often forget that not being able to read, or not reading, even fifty years ago, let alone a hundred years ago, was very different from not reading now.
We live under 24/7 saturation bombing from enervated mass media and a bogus manufactured popular culture. If you don’t read you will likely be watching telly, or on the computer, or listening to fake music from puppet-show bands.
When the families I knew in my northern textile town didn’t read – and they didn’t – they were in the brass band, or in the choir, telling their own stories down the pub or on the greyhound track, finding the quiet pleasure of mending kit or working the allotment, or walking for miles in the Pennines. I am not glamorising this working-class life; it was hard and short, and I could not stay there and I would not want it back. But it had a genuine culture of its own – roots up – and it was not force-fed adverts, consumerism and The X Factor.
The consequences of homogenised mass culture plus the failure of our education system and our contempt for books and art (it’s either entertainment or elitist, never vital and democratic), mean that not reading cuts off the possibility of private thinking, or of a trained mind, or of a sense of self not dependent on external factors.
A trained mind is a mind that can concentrate. Attention Deficit Disorder is not a disease; it is a consequence of not reading. Teach a child to read and keep that child reading and you will change everything. And yes, I mean everything.
Back to the mountain.
Powerfully argued in The Living Mountain is the need to be physical, to be in the body, and to let the senses and the soul work in harmony with the mind. This seems a long way from lying in bed and reading a book. But it isn’t far at all.
Reading stills the body for a while, allowing rest without torpor and quiet without passivity. Reading is not a passive act. Engaged in the book, in company with the writer, the mind can roam where it will. Such freedom to roam reminds us that body and mind both need exercise and activity, and that neither the mind nor the body can cope with confinement. And if the body has to cope with confinement, then all the more reason to have developed a mind that knows how to roam.
In the last months of her long life Nan Shepherd was in hospital, unable to climb her beloved mountains. But her mind went on climbing. She could not be trapped.
Reading is a way through, a way in, a way out. It is a way of life. The rewards are immense.
Glossary
aace ashes
Ablach, tiny undersized creature
anent, over against, concerning
antrin, one here and there
a’thing, everything
aweirs o’, inclined to
barkit, covered as with bark, peeled
begeck, disappointment
begrutten, tear-stained
ben the hoose, inside, further into the house or next room
besom, hussy
bide bydin, stay, remain; staying
bike, wasps’ nest
birse, vb., to force, press upwards; n., to have one’s birse up, one’s temper roused
birstled, cooked till hard and crisp
bit, little, scrap of
blake, cockroach, beetle
blate, shy, diffident
blaud, dirty, soil
blin’ drift, drifting snow
blithe, happy
bog-jaaveled, completely at a loss
bourrach, small group, swarm
bow-hoched, bow-legged
brear, first small blade appearing above the ground; brears o’ the e’e, eyelashes
broch, halo
brook, soot
brose, oatmeal and milk or hot water
buckie, limpet
bung; ta’en the bung, taken offence
byordinar, unusually
byous, beyond the ordinary
caddis, dust, fluff
ca’ed, driven
cairded, scolded
canalye, Fr. canaille
cantle up, brighten up
cantrip, piece of mischief
canty, lively, cheerful
cark, care
chappit, (thumb), hacked
chau’mer, chamber, bothy
chiel, lad
cloor, dent, blow
clorted, covered with mud
clout, rag
clyte, fall
collieshangie, animated talk
coorse, bad
connach, devour, spoil
contermashious, contradictory, obstinate
crack, gossip
craiturie, little creature
a crap for a’ corn and a baggie for orrels, an appetite for absolutely anything and then some (literally: a bag for leftovers)
creish, fat
crined, shrunk, shrivelled
curran, a number
dambrod, chess-board
dander, to have one’s dander up, temper roused
dawtie, pet, darling
deave, deafen, torment with insistence
deemie, farm, kitchenmaid
deil, devil
delvin, digging
dicht, wipe
dingin’ on, raining or snowing hard
dirds, bangs (vb)
dirdums, daein’ dirdums, doing great things
dirl, ring, vibrate
doit, small copper coin
dour, stubborn
dowie, spiritless
drookit, soaked, drowned
drummlie, physically upset
dubbit, covered with mud
dubs, mud
dunt, a blow
a dunt on the riggin, not all there (dent in the roof)
dwam, faint, swoon
(neither) echie nor ochie, not the smallest sound
e’en, eyes
eident, diligent
ettlin’, desirous after
f=wh
fa, who
fan, when
fat, what
faur, where
fairin’, present from the fair
fash yersel, put yourself to trouble
fee’d, hired
ferlies, wonders
fey, peculiar, other-worldly
ficher, fiddle, fidget
fient, never! not a! (lit: devil!)
flan, gust
fleggit, startled
flinchin, deceitful promise of better weather
foo, how
forbye, besides
forty-fitted Janet, centipede
forfoch’en, exhausted, fought done
fleg, fright, frighten
flist, storm of temper
fou’, drunk
ful, proud
fyle, soil, make dirty
gait, way
gar, cause to
geal-cauld, ice-cold
geet, child
gey, rather
a gey snod bit deemie, a rather neat little maid
geylies, considerable
gin, if
girn, fret
girse, grass
glower, scowl
gomeril, fool
gorbals, nestlings
graip, fork (for land work)
grat, cried
greetin, crying
guff, smell
gumption, sense, vigour, initiative
gype, stupid person
gyte, ga’en gyte, gone out of one’s mind
haggar, clumsy hacking
halarackit, high-spirited, rowdy without offensiveness
halfin, teenager
hantle, a good deal
hain, save, spare
hairst, harvest
hap, cover up
havering, talking nonsense
heelster-gowdie, upside down
hine awa’/up, far away/up
hippit, stiff in the hips
hirple, limp
hive, a skin sore
hotter, boil vigorously
hotterel, a swarm
howff, draught
howk, dig
hurdies, hips
ilka, each, every
ill-fashioned, inquisitive
inen, in among
ingan, onion
jaloose, guess, suspect
jaud, (common) woman
kebbuck, cheese
keek, keeking, peek, peeking
kink-hoast, whooping-cough
kowk, retch
kitties, calves (a pet name for)
kittled, tickled
kye, cattle
lave, rest
legammachy, long story without much in it
leuch, laughed
lift, sky
limmer, hussy
lippen, trust
to lippen to, to trust
loon, boy, lad
louse, loosen, unharness
lousin’ time, end of the working day
lowe, blaze
lugs, ears
mavis, song thrush
mim-mou’ed, primly spoken or behaved
mishanter, mishap, disaster
mommets, dolls, puppets
mowse, right (with sense of Latin fas), nae mowse, nefas, uncanny
my certies, indeed (emphasis)
neips, turnips
neuk, corner
newse, chat
nieve, fist
nimsch, fragment
nippit, pinched, narrow in outlook
nowt, cattle
nyatter, nag
nyod (an exclamation, lit: God!)
ootlin, outsider, outcast
or, before
orra, odd, miscellaneous
orrels, bits and pieces
oxter, arm-pit, vb., to put the arm round
pech, sigh
penurious, particular, ill to please
pi, pious, sanctimonious
pilgate, quarrel
pleuch, plough
pliskey, trick, escapade
pooches, pockets
preens, pins
puckle, a few
puddock, frog
pyet, magpie
pyockie, poke, bag
queets, ankles
raivelled, confused
rary, go about noisily, clamour
rax, stretch
reeshle, rustle
rickle, a structure put loosely together, loose heap
rive, tear asunder
roarie-bummlers, (noisy blunderers) storm clouds
roup, a sale or public auction
rug, pull
sair, sore
sair weary, very tired
sark, shirt
scalin’, dispersing
scran, scrounge
scunnered, disgusted
scutter awa’, do things slowly and not very thoroughly
scuttered, fiddled about
shaltie, pony
shank, stocking being knitted
sharger, half grown creature
sharn, dung
sheen, shoes
sheepy silver, flakes of mica (in a stone)
shog, push
sic mannie sic horsie, like master, like man
skellochin’, shrieking
skirp, splatter
sklype, clumsy worthless person
smeddum, vigour of intellect
smored, smothered (in snow)
snod, neat
sonsy, of generous proportions
sooples, supples, softens
soo’s snoot, pig’s nose
sotter, untidy dress
sowens, a kind of fine-meal porridge
spangin’, walking vigorously
speir, ask
spoot-ma-gruel, any unappetising food
spunk, match
spurtle, a round stick for stirring porridge
stap, stuff
steekit, shut
stew, dust
stob, splinter under the skin
stite, nonsense
sumph, heavy lout
swacker, more supple
swage, loosen, make easy
sweir, lazy
tackie, tig (child’s game)
tangle, icicle, seaweed
tansies, ragworts (plants)
teem, empty
teen, temper, mood
thole, endure
thraw, to wring
thrawn, obstinate
thrums, scraps of thread
thirled, bound, tied
timmer knife, wooden knife (useless)
tine, loose
tinkey, tinker
trauchle, n., trouble, heavy toil
trig, neat
tyauve, struggle
wae, woeful
wantin, lacking
waur; name the waur, worse; none the worse
warstle, wrestle
waucht, draught
wersch, without savour, insipid
whammlin’, jogging
whiles, at the same time
whin, gorse, furze bush
wrocht, worked, laboured
yird,vb., to give a blow
yon, that
yowies, pine cones
About the Author
Anna (Nan) Shepherd was born in 1893 and died in 1981. Closely attached to Aberdeen and her native Deeside, she graduat
ed from her home university in 1915, and went to work for the next forty-one years as a lecturer in English at what is now Aberdeen College of Education. An enthusiastic gardener and hill walker, she made many visits to the Cairngorms with students and friends and was a keen member of the Deeside Field Club. Her last book, a non-fiction study called The Living Mountain, testifies to her love of the hills and her knowledge of them in all their moods. Her many further travels included visits to Norway, France, Italy, Greece and South Africa, but she always returned to the house where she was raised and lived almost all her adult life, in the village of West Cults, three miles from Aberdeen on North Deeside.
Nan Shepherd wrote three novels, all well received by the critics: The Quarry Wood (1928), followed by The Weatherhouse (1930) and A Pass in the Grampians (1933). A collection of poems, In the Cairngorms, appeared in 1934, and The Living Mountain was published in 1977. She edited Aberdeen University Review from 1957 to 1964, contributed to The Deeside Field, and worked on editions of poetry by two fellow North-east writers, J.C. Milne and Charles Murray. She was awarded an honorary degree by Aberdeen University in 1964, and her many friends included Agnes Mure Mackenzie, Helen Cruickshank, Willa Muir, Hugh MacDiarmid, William Soutar and Jessie Kesson.
This Canons edition published in Great Britain, the USA and Canada in 2014 by Canongate Books
First published in Great Britain in 1977 by Aberdeen University Press
Published as part of The Grampian Quartet in 1996
by Canongate Books
14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
This digital edition first published in 2011
by Canongate Books
Copyright © Nan Shepherd, 2008
Introduction copyright © Robert Macfarlane, 2011
Afterword copyright © Jeanette Winterson, 2011
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library
ISBN 978 0 85786 360 7
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