RBS choses Nan Shepard for new 5-pound note

From The Guardian: "The Scottish author Nan Shepherd, who explored the Cairngorms in her classic text The Living Mountain, is to feature on a new Scottish £5 note.

Shepherd was chosen by the Royal Bank of Scotland board after the scientist Mary Somerville was selected as the image for the Scottish £10 note by public vote. The new £5 note will enter circulation later this year, with the £10 to follow in 2017. RBS board chair Malcolm Buchanan 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".

As well as an image of Shepherd, the RBS £5 note features a quote from the author’s first novel, The Quarry Wood – "It’s a grand thing to get leave to live" – and one from her meditation on the Scottish landscape, 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."

Born in 1893, Shepherd spent all her life in Aberdeen. She wrote her 80-page meditation on the Cairngorm mountains during the second world war but only published it in 1977, four years before her death. By the beginning of the 21st century, it was almost forgotten, but a resurgence of interest in nature writing has seen Shepherd’s books enjoying a new lease of life.

The reverse of the £5 note features an excerpt from Gaelic poet Sorley MacLean’s poem The Choice, which translates into English as "I walked with my reason, out beside the sea". The £10 note shows an excerpt from Norman MacCraig’s poem Moorings: "The cork that can’t be travels / Nose of a dog otter / It’s piped at, screamed at, sworn at / By an elegant oystercatcher."

Each note also features a midge, to "represent the reality of everyday living in the Scottish countryside", according to RBS. "It’s a reminder that Scottish nature nips us as well as thrills us," said Macfarlane." Source.

Update 28-4-2016: Together with this news the final designs for both the new 5-pound note and the 10-pound note have been shown to the world. Below the notes in their full glory.

Update 13-09-2016: In this article on the BBC website the date of 27 October 2016 is mentioned for the introduction of the 5-pound note with Nan Shepherd.