Shortlisted for the Boardman Tasker Award for Mountain Literature
Elemental, fierce, and full of wonder, the Cairngorm mountains are the high and rocky heart of Scotland. To know them would take forever, to love them demands a kind of courageous surrender.
In The Hidden Fires, Merryn Glover undertakes that challenge with Nan Shepherd as companion and guiding light. Following in the footsteps and contours of The Living Mountain, she explores the same landscapes and themes as Shepherd's seminal work. This is a journey separated by time but unified by space and purpose, a conversation between two women across nearly a century that explores how entering the life of a mountain can illuminate our own.
An Australian who grew up in the Himalayas, her early experiences of the Scottish hills and weather left her cold. But gradually acclimatizing and with an approach like Shepherd's, that is more mountain wandering than mountaineering, she discovers the spark that sets the hills and herself on fire. Through Glover's deepening encounter, the wild majesty and iridescence of the Cairngorms is revealed in this beautiful evocation of landscape, place, and identity.
When Lily, a young girl from a troubled background becomes pregnant, she insists she is still a virgin. A host of professionals swing into action. Lily becomes increasingly isolated: her belief is diagnosed as delusion, there are suspicions of abuse, and the unborn baby is shown to be severely disabled. But despite all of this, her conviction that God has chosen her for a miracle finds proof in the most unexpected ways. Starring Helen Mackay, Cathleen McCarron, Ken Drury, Jane Whittenshaw, Jenny Lee, Ali Craig and Megg Nicol. Written by Merryn Glover. Producer/director: David Ian Neville.
