Former Aberdeen University student to feature on Scottish £5 note

Nan Shepard, former AU student and author of The Quarry Wood and The Living Mountain, to feature on Scottish £5 note.

Nan Shepard was chosen by the board for The Royal Bank of Scotland to appear on the £5 note which will be circulated towards the end of 2016.

Scientist Mary Somerville was chosen to appear on £10 note.

Malcolm Buchanan, RBS board chair, said the bank had “never before featured a woman on its main issue bank notes” and that the new issues celebrated “the fantastic, and often overlooked, achievements of two great Scottish women”.

The note will also feature a quote from her novel The Quarry Wood: “It’s a grand thing to get leave to live.”

A second quote from The Living Mountain will also be included: “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.”

Shepard’s novel The Quarry Wood (1928) is taught as part of the second year English course ‘The Tragedy of Knowledge’ at Aberdeen University.

Following her graduation from AU in 1915, Shepard is also known for editing the Aberdeen University Review between 1957 and 1964, and was awarded an honorary degree by the university in 1964.