CHINESE GRAVE’S SECRET: A FAMED RUNNER RESTS HERE
A marker at
last for the devout hero of “Chariots of Fire”
By, BARBARA BASLER
Special to the New York Times
December 2, 1990
Eric Liddell, the extraordinary runner
whose brief, brilliant athletic career was the subject of the movie,
"Chariots of Fire” has lain in an unmarked grave in Weifang, China, for the
last 45 years.
Mr Liddell, who astounded the world at
the 1924 Paris Olympics when he stood by his Calvinist, principles and refused
to compete on Sunday, spent his adult life as a missionary in,
He was
interned in a Japanese prison camp in Weifang, where he died and was buried in
1945.
Now, after months of research, a fellow
Scotsman, Charles T. Walker, has found Mr. Liddell's grave in a small cemetery
next to the sprawling
"I was working on a book about
Scots, and the more I talked to people who had known Liddell the more convinced
we all became that his grave should be marked," said Mr. Walker, a consulting
engineer in
A gifted runner, Mr. Liddell was
heavily favored to win the 100-meter race in
The coach of the British Olympic team
then entered him in the 400-meter race, an event he had not trained for, and
he; again astonished the world by winning first place. Mr. Liddell left for
Even when
Mr. Walker said that when word spread
he intended to find the grave and erect a memorial, "offers of help, money,
came flooding in," from
“There was a need to harness all that
good will," Mr. Walker said, and this week he and a group of prominent
A Student's Recollections
In January; David Puttnam, the producer
of "Chariots of Fire," will journey
to Hong Kong to attend a fund-raising event for the foundation and is scheduled
to speak about Mr: Liddell's life at a screening of the movie.
Cheng Hon-kwan, a director of the
foundation and a member of
"He was very well liked by the
students,” Mr: Cheng recalled. "We all knew he was an Olympic gold medal
winner and that he had not run on Sunday. Everyone thought of him as a hero. He
was tall and very fit, but be was bald headed by then. My impression was of a
very lively, very likable man."
Mr. Cheng said Mr. Liddell was his
teacher for only a few months. "War broke out in the Pacific," be
said; “and the Japanese came and took all the British teachers away to
camps."
Mr. Liddell was interned along with
1,800 other Westerners in Weifang, then a remote provincial farming center
about 500 miles northeast of Beijing. Mr. Walker said Mr. Liddell's wife,
"There were quite a few youngsters
in the camp who were interned without their parents, because they had been at a
nearby boarding school," Mr. Walker said. "Liddell was put in charge
of one of the dorms for these boys. He was called Uncle Eric, and he organized
sports and all kinds of activities for them.
"The people who knew Eric all said
that he was a very special person," Mr. Walker said. "He was a strong
believer, but he wasn't a pushy Christian."
Mr. Liddell was 43 years old when he
died of a brain tumor in the camp. Several men who were boys at the time
recalled his burial for Mr. Walker.
Graveyard Is Intact
Mr.-Walker and some friends went to
Weifang, last July, armed with notes from the former prisoners and an old map
of the area. Though the provincial town is now an industrial city of four
million people, the little camp grave-yard was still intact, next to the
sprawling post-war school. The graves in the old camp cemetery, Mr. Walker said,
were marked only with small wooden crosses, but people present at the funeral
recalled which was Mr. Liddell's.
The granite stone marker for the grave
will be engraved with Mr. Liddell's name, a brief biography in English and
Chinese, and a quotation from Isaiah: "They shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall
run, and not be weary.”
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