The Living Mountain

Anna (Nan) Shepherd was born in 1893 and died in 1981. Closely attached to Aberdeen and her native Deeside, she graduated from her home university in 1915 and for the next forty-one years worked as a lecturer in English. An enthusiastic gardener and hill-walker, she made many visits to the Cairngorms with students and friends. She also travelled further afield - to Norway, France, Italy, Greece and South Africa - but always returned to the house where she was raised and where she lived almost all of her adult life, in the village of West Cults, three miles from Aberdeen on North Deeside. To honour her legacy, in 2016, Nan Shepherd was added to the Royal Bank of Scotland five-pound note.Tilda Swinton is an award-winning actor, known for her roles in films including I Am Love, We Need to Talk About Kevin, Michael Clayton and A Bigger Splash. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2007, is a recipient of the Richard Harris Award for her contribution to the British film industry and has been nominated for three Golden Globes. Swinton lives in the Scottish Highlands, close to Nan Shepherd's beloved Cairngorm Mountains.