Nan Shepherd to feature on Scottish £5 note

Scottish novelist and poet Nan Shepherd will appear on the new Scottish £5 note, after being selected by the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).

RBS Scotland board chairman Malcolm Buchanan said the public was involved in helping to choose Shepherd, who is the author of a non-fiction book on hillwalking, entitled The Living Mountain (Canongate), as well as several novels.

An example of the £5 note featuring Nan Shepherd.

The design features a quote from The Living Mountain: “But the struggle between frost and the force in running water is not quickly over. The battle fluctuates, and at the point of fluctuation between the motion in water and the immobility of frost, strange and beautiful forms are evolved.”

The news comes after the bank announced that scientist Mary Somerville will appear on the new £10 note, which will enter circulation next year.

Buchanan said: "I am delighted that we have been able to involve the public throughout this process; from the workshops and surveys that helped to decide on the theme, right through to the public vote that resulted in Mary Somerville being chosen to feature on the £10 note.

"People in Scotland will be using this money every day and it is quite right that they got to play an important role in designing it. This truly is the people's money. The Royal Bank of Scotland has never before featured a woman on its main issue bank notes.

Robert Macfarlane, who wrote the introduction to the Canongate edition of The Living Mountain, said the news was “thrilling”.

“Nan was a blazingly brilliant writer, a true original whose novels, poems and non-fiction broke new ground in Scottish literature, and her influence lives on powerfully today… It is just wonderful news that she will now become known to millions more people in Scotland and beyond."

To celebrate the announcement, Canongate have reduced the price of Shepherd’s e-books to £5. The offer will last until the end of the week.