Eric Liddell was a hero who ran like Hell for the greater glory of God

You’ll know him from the film Chariots of Fire – apologies if I’ve set that Vangelis theme tune worming through your ears. You’ll remember our man refused to run aboot on a Sunday and so forth. But there was more to him than that.

Eric Henry Liddell was born 16 January 1902 – shortly after the anti-foreigner Boxer Uprising – in Tientsin (now Tianjin), China. His parents were Scottish missionaries.

Liddell attended school in China for a short while before being enrolled, aged six, at Eltham College, a boarding school in London for missionaries’ sons, though relatives frequently reunited in Edinburgh.

At Eltham, Liddell was named best athlete of his year, and became captain of the cricket and rugby union teams. His headmaster described him as “entirely without vanity”.

In 1920, he enrolled at Embra Yoonie to study Pure Science, but became better known as Scotland’s fastest runner. Newspapers were already calling him a potential Olympic winner. He also played rugby for the University Club, gaining a place in the Scotland team. Anything to avoid Pure Science. His main asset was speed, though Student magazine said he also had “rugby brains”. What, small?

Fortunately, he gave up scrums to focus on runs, winning the AAA Championships 100-yard race in 1923, setting a then British record of 9.7 seconds. In other news, he graduated Bachelor of Science in 1924.

For God's sake

In that year’s Paris Olympics, the devout Christian withdrew from the 100 metres, his strong point, because the heats were taking place on the Sabbath. The decision caused heat in the press, which questioned his patriotism.

Liddell pooh-poohed all that, and focused instead on the 400 metres, held on a weekday. Ostensibly, his chances were slim, despite being cheered by the pipe band of the 51st Highland Brigade playing outside the stadium beforehand. Two of the runners had already set world records and, in addition, Eric was assigned the worst lane, on the outside.

However, he set such a blistering pace from the off that two other runners stumbled trying to keep up. He broke all records with a time of 47.6 seconds. The press praised him for his patriotism.

In the aforementioned film, he says: “God made me fast. And when I run, I feel His pleasure.” Bit weird. In reality, he said: “[E]ach one of us is in a greater race than any I have run in Paris, and this race ends when God gives out the medals.” An incentive to waddle slowly, you’d think.

In 1925, at the Scottish Amateur Athletics Association meeting in Glasgow, Liddell equalled his Scottish championship record of 10.0 seconds in the 100 yards, won the 220 yards in 22.2 seconds and the 440 yards in 47.7. These were his last races on British soil.

He returned to Northern China that year to serve as a missionary, revisiting Scotland only twice, in 1932 and 1939. Asked if he regretted ditching athletics, he replied: “It's natural for a chap to think over all that sometimes, but I’m glad I'm at the work I'm engaged in now. A fellow’s life counts for far more at this than the other.”

Fair enough. Liddell's first missionary job was teacher at a college for wealthy Chinese students (he believed teaching future influential figures would promote Christian values). In 1934, he married Florence Mackenzie, whose Canadian parents were missionaries. The couple had three daughters, the last of whom Liddell would not live to see.

Great Britain's Eric Liddell crosses the line first to win the Gold Medal. Eric Liddell was due to compete in the 100 metres race but as a committed Christian he refused to run on a sunday. He was later portrayed in the film Chariots of Fire..

War footing

In 1941, in the face of Japanese aggression, the British government advised its nationals to leave. Florence and the children departed for Canada, while Liddell took a tough gig at a rural mission station in Xiaozhang, where his doctor brother, Rob, was suffering from exhaustion.

As the Japanese approached, Liddell dodged gunfire carrying the injured to the hospital. When Japanese troops took over the mission station, he returned to Tianjin and, in 1943, was interned at a squalid, rat-filled camp in Weihsien. No running water. Meals a small bowl of soup with bread.

Eric became a leader at the camp and, when rich internees smuggled in eggs, he shamed them into sharing them. He avoided factions, but organised games, helped the elderly, and taught Bible classes and science to the children, who called him Uncle Eric.

Camp survivors recalled Liddell’s “charming Scottish brogue”, his sense of humour, and the help afforded others who might not otherwise have survived. One described him as “the finest Christian gentleman it has been my pleasure to meet”. Another said he was “as close to [a saint] as anyone I have ever known”.

After initially refusing, he even refereed a children’s sports match on a Sunday – to stop the bairns fighting in his absence. Alas, he was soon fighting for his life. On top of overwork and malnutrition, Liddell developed a brain tumour. He died, aged 43, on 21 February 1945. The entire camp was grief-stricken.

He was buried behind the Japanese officers’ quarters, his grave marked by a small wooden cross. The site was forgotten until 1989 when Charles Walker, a civil engineer who feared a great Scottish hero might be forgotten, finally rediscovered the grave in what were now school grounds.

A national hero

Eric Liddell is far from forgotten. In 1991, Edinburgh University erected a memorial headstone at the former camp site. In 2002, he topped a poll for most popular Scottish sporting hero. The Eric Liddell Centre was set up in Edinburgh in 1980 to honour his Christian values and community service. Next year, The Eric Liddell 100 will celebrate the centenary of the 1924 victory in Paris.

That event famously features in Hugh Hudson’s Oscar-winning 1981 film Chariots of Fire, which captures Liddell’s unorthodox running style: head back, gasping mouth wide open, hands clawing the air.

In Paris, some greeted the sight with derisive laughter. But rival Harold Abrahams said: “People may shout their heads off about his appalling style. Well, let them. He gets there.”