![Chariots of Fire [DVD] [1981]](https://images-eu.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71h+1PQsXIL._AC_UL160_SR160,160_.jpg)
Eric Liddell is probably the best known 20th century Scot with a China connection – he worked there as a missionary from 1925 until his untimely death in 1945, in a Japanese internment camp at Weihsien (now Weifang), Shandong province. He is of course also known as the British runner who gave up the chance of Olympic gold in 1924 because he would not run on a Sunday, and was immortalised by the film 'Chariots of Fire'. This book was first produced to tie-in with that film, and has now been updated. His memory is still revered in China today, both in Shandong and Tianjin (then Tientsin) where he was born to missionary parents and later taught for some years.
The book covers his entire life, but the China interest really begins on page 85, when he returned to Tientsin as an adult to join the staff of the Anglo-Chinese college. He apparently “did not make remarkable progress as a teacher”, but unsurprisingly, “on the sports field it was a different matter”, as he took over the college athletics and “soon had his boys breaking records”. However, he still felt the pull towards “front line” missionary work, and joined his brother at Sioachang (now Xiaozhang), Hebei province, in 1937. He worked there until 1940, notably in the hospital, helping casualties of the Sino-Japanese fighting.
By 1940, he was back in Scotland on leave, and given the international situation, could well have stayed. But Liddell returned to China, and was thus interned by the Japanese when hostilities broke out with the UK and the US in December 1941, initially at Tientsin and finally, in 1943, at Weihsien. He threw himself wholeheartedly into camp life and was loved by his fellow internees, especially the children – his death, to a brain tumour, was a blow to the whole camp. The city of Weifang commemorated Liddell's life by laying a wreath at the memorial headstone marking his grave in 2005, as part of the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the internment camp, with further celebrations at the time of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
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