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ANNA
Good morning.Ìý I’m Anna Magnusson, and today I’m slightly outside of the main hubbub of all the Edinburgh Festival activity – here in a green space in the south of the city, where the districts of Bruntsfield and Morningside merge.Ìý

I had never heard of Eric Liddell until 1981, when my journalist sister, Sally, wrote a biography of him.Ìý It was called – memorably – ‘The Flying Scotsman’.

Because Eric did sort of fly when he ran – arms flapping, head back, streaking towards the finish line.Ìý Not a balanced or beautiful running action – but a powerful rushing, a joyous racing of body, mind and soul.

I remember my sister describing him to me – how there was nothing overtly pious or religious about him, but that he had a Christian faith which was undidactic and deep.Ìý And fame left him utterly unchanged.

And, try as she might, my sister could never find anyone who had a bad word to say about him.

MUSIC: CHARIOTS OF FIRE – VANGELIS
Album: The Collection;Ìý Record Label: Rhino;Ìý â„— 2012 This compilation 2012 Warner Music UK Ltd.

ANNA:
Eric Liddell is famously known as the man who sacrificed the chance of a gold medal at the 1924 Olympics in Paris – because the 100 metres heats were moved to a Sunday, and he would not run on the Sabbath.Ìý Instead, he switched to the 400 metres – and won gold.ÌýÌý

This morning - a century on from that Olympic success - we’ll hear Eric’s story from people who knew and remembered him.

Later, David Puttnam, the producer of the 1981 film ‘Chariots of Fire’, will talk about Eric’s character and achievements -Ìý and what it was that drew him to his story.Ìý

DAVID PUTTNAM
I was going through a book which was just literally a history of the Olympic Games, and I stumbled across this paragraph about this, I think it referred to Eric as a dark horse, who had, to everyone's amazement, won the 400m race. And then it talked about the fact he'd refused to run in the 100. And in an odd way, I think I'd been looking for something similar. What it triggered in me is, ah, this is a film about defiance. It's about someone who's made a very principled stand and has come out ahead. And he's defiant. It was a word that was very important to me, that at certain moment in life, you have to take a stand.

ANNA:Ìý And we’ll also hear voices from another time - from people who knew Eric during the Second World War.Ìý They met him during the final period of his life, far removed from Olympic glory and fame – when, as a missionary in China, he was one of hundreds detained in a Japanese internment camp.

MUSIC: FLJOTAVIK – SIGUR ROS
Album:
Record Label: Parlophone UK

PETER ÌýThere was something rather extra special about Eric.Ìý It was the deep concern for us. You went away feeling that life worth living for. He was rather like an anchor. Seeing his face - something so good and wholesome, he radiated a presence.

JOYCE ÌýHe was so great with teenagers. We all just loved him. He was in charge of the games, and he took care of the hockey sticks and the tennis rackets, always with a gentle smile on his face. And his life was such an example. He was always kind, always considerate. He was always doing special little things for people.

JOE ÌýWe were both getting up early in the morning, and so Eric and I managed to discover a small table that we could put between us, a little homemade peanut oil lamp to give us just a glimmer of light, and we shared our morning devotions. Particularly high on Eric’s list was praying for his wife and children in Toronto, but also the whole situation.

So it's probably one of the most cherished memories I have in the whole of my life.

ANNA:
I’m here at Morningside United Church. This area is known locally as Holy Corner because there’s a church at each junction of a busy crossroads.Ìý

This was Eric’s home church when he was studying in Edinburgh.Ìý

A congregation and choir have gathered here in the church to sing some of Eric’s favourite music.

We begin with a setting of a hymn Eric loved – ‘There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy’.

MUSIC: CHOIR – THERE’S A WIDENESS IN GOD’S MERCY (Bevan setting to tune Corvedale)

REV SARAH MOORE:
Good morning.Ìý My name is Sarah Moore and I am the Transitional Minister working at Morningside United Church.Ìý Eric Liddell was proud to root his Christian faith in Scottish Congregationalism, and Morningside Congregational Church as it was in his time, was Eric’s spiritual home. Now a joint congregation of the United Reformed Church and the Church of Scotland, we are proud to be one among many inheritors of his legacy.

One of Eric’s favourite Bible readings is from St Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 13.

READING:

St Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 13.
13 If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.Ìý2And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.Ìý3If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast,Ìýbut do not have love, I gain nothing.

4Ìý Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogantÌý5or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;Ìý6it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.Ìý7It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.Ìý12For now we see in a mirror, dimly,Ìýbut then we will see face to face. 13And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

Ìý

ANNA:
Let’s pray

Ìý

This is a morning of past and present.Ìý

Of memories and fleeting moments.

Of powerful stories and images.

Ìý

We picture Eric Liddell,

running his races at the 1924 Paris Olympics;

and we celebrate the athletes who’ve just competed, 100 years later, in the same city.Ìý

Like Eric, they were strong with youth and hope –

With the dedication of the years and the gift of glorious talent.

Ìý

We live our lives in moments, second by second, day by day, year by year.

Our stories turn and twist,

And the moments stream on, no matter.

We keep and treasure what we can,

And quietly let go of the past when we must.

Ìý

We live through times of peace, and times of fear:ÌýÌý

Loving God, bring light and calm to the darkness of anger, we pray.

May God grant us light on our path.Ìý

May God’s love walk with us on our journey.

And may we each find strength for the race before us.

All:Ìý Amen

Ìý

MUSIC – CHOIR
‘Come light, light of God, give light to creation, enlighten our hearts and remain with your world’

ANNA:Ìý A year after the 1924 Olympics, Eric Liddell changed his life.Ìý

When he got home, he enrolled at the Scottish Congregational College in Edinburgh.Ìý And then, the following year, armed with a degree in teaching and a qualification in theology - he left Scotland for missionary work in China.Ìý There was no great soul-searching which he shared with anyone.ÌýÌý He just made his decision – and set off.Ìý Like launching himself from the start line of another race.

The day he left Scotland from Waverley train station here in Edinburgh, a huge crowd gathered to wave him off.Ìý Eric’s fellow students swept him from the college to the station in a decorated carriage, and all the way along the platform to his train.Ìý Someone started singing the hymn ‘Jesus Shall Reign’ as the train pulled out.Ìý A family friend wrote to Eric’s parents that the sceneÌý ‘was such a send-off as no missionary going abroad has ever had in Edinburgh.’

Ìý

MUSIC - CHOIR + CONGREGATION:Ìý JESUS SHALL REIGN WHERE’ER THE SUN

ANNA – INTERVIEW WITH JOHN MACMILLAN, WHO LEADS THE ERIC LIDDELL COMMUNITY, MORNINGSIDE, EDINBURGH

Ìý

MUSIC:Ìý SWEET FREDERIK – PHAMIE GOW
Record Label: Wildfire Records and Publishing

ANNA:Ìý
Outside, at the back of the church here, there’s a garden.

The Reverend Mary Taylor, who’s Morningside United Church’s Pastoral Assistant, and Brigitte Harris, the Director of Music - they want the garden to be a place of peace and contemplation in the midst of this busy suburban area.Ìý And there’s been much happy planning and planting.

Ìý

MARY AND BRIGITTE
Mary and Brigitte in the Peace Garden, naming flowers chosen in memory of Eric, and describing aims to make the garden a contemplative oasis for the community.

ANNA: INTERVIEW WITH SUE CATON, NIECE OF ERIC LIDDELL

Ìý

MUSIC:Ìý ETERNAL MEMORY, for solo cello and strings (1st Movement) (Composer: John Tavener) Performed by Steven Isserlis
Album: Tavener/Bloch/Steven Isserlis;Ìý Record Label: RCA Victor 09026 61966 2

ANNA:
Decades after the 1924 Olympics, a new generation heard about the man who wouldn’t run on a Sunday.Ìý The film producer David Puttnam was fascinated by Eric Liddell’s story, and he decided to make a film about him - and the other magnificent British Olympic sprinter, Harold Abrahams.

In 1981, the multi-award winning Chariots of Fire, was released.

David told me how he responded to Eric’s story.

DAVID ÌýI think, to be honest, Anna, it was more aspirational, that's to say I felt that's the way you ought to be.Ìý So I think he was a man of extraordinary principle who was prepared to take his principles much farther than certainly most people, to a point where today, in today's world, it would appear to be almost irrational. It just couldn't happen today. And yet and yet and yet, I think it's, I think it's what people would like, it's a sort of principle people would like to adhere to. We don't because we live in a world that doesn't either appreciate that or even understand it. But deep down in our souls, I think it's something we would all be rather comfortable to emulate. It's like courage, like forms of extreme courage. We all want to be courageous. Very, very few of us are. I'm certainly not.

ANNA ÌýEric's widow, after she saw the film, she said that she knew of Eric as being rather a poor speaker and that the film gave him the voice, a voice that he never had, which is a wonderful thing to say about your film, isn't it?

DAVID ÌýIt is. And she said it to me, and I think she said it to other people that, she said my husband was a poor speaker and her actual words were, ‘Your wee man there said all the things that Eric would wish to say, but said them better.’ What Ian Charleson brought to that role, I cannot imagine that if Eric were around now, he could imagine an actor that could have done a better job of depicting his doubts, his qualities, his determination. I mean, I think he was clearly a very modest man, a quiet man about from everything I read. He was a man, I think, probably, who used running as an expression of his faith.

ANNAÌý Did you like him, or in what way did you respond to him as a man, as you created the film and more and more of who he was emerged?

DAVIDÌý Well, I came to respect him because everyone we ever talked to would just always refer to him as this extraordinary man, this wonderful man, this kind man. I mean, we never, ever got a negative word about Eric from anybody.

ANNAÌý I wonder what you think about, whether the man that you made Chariots of Fire about, is the same man you recognize in the rest of his life and the life in the prison camp and just who he managed to remain through the most awful circumstances.

DAVIDÌý Yes. I mean, I think that's one of the rather reassuring things to me as the film maker is that he's not someone that ever let you down, and we never had to be embarrassed or gloss over something. He was an utterly consistent person.

ANNA ÌýIt's very, very moving for me that the man who ran in total kind of, bliss and enjoyment and faith is the man who died in a war camp, still going about keeping that sort of light inside him, keeping it burning for other people. I just find it very moving.

DAVID ÌýWell, I couldn't agree more. Just, just one thing I would say, I'm not sure I’ve ever said this before. We started shooting on a Monday and I was in Edinburgh, and actually, I'm not a regular churchgoer at all. I actually went to church and, that Sunday morning and actually asked Eric for any help he could possibly give me, because I knew that what we were setting out to do was going to be damned difficult. And, well, what can I tell you? I think he answered.

MUSIC:Ìý SWEET FREDERIK – PHAMIE GOW as before

ANNA:Ìý
There’s a story about Eric Liddell which stopped me in my tracks when I first read it in my sister’s book, ‘The Flying Scotsman’.

For a moment, I thought I could see the full, authentic man.

Not only the runner, racing for the line with his head thrown back.Ìý Or the smiling celebrity, waving to crowds as the train pulled out of Edinburgh. Or the young man in his white shorts and teeshirt, splashing along the beach at St Andrews with the team of runners, at the start of Chariots of Fire.

The Eric Liddell that leapt into my heart was the man in the Japanese internment camp in China in 1943. This was the man who was a comfort and strength to so many people.Ìý

This was the story I read.Ìý In the camp, Eric kept the children occupied and happy by organising games and sports activities.Ìý There were hundreds of people in the camp, and many of the teenagers wanted to organise a hockey game for themselves on a Sunday.Ìý No, said Eric, there were to be no games on a Sunday.

The young people weren’t pleased about this, so they just went ahead and did it themselvesÌý – girls versus boys.Ìý But the match ended in chaos because there was no referee.ÌýÌý Ìý

The next Sunday, Eric came on to the field - and refereed.Ìý He wouldn’t run on a Sunday for an Olympic medal for himself – but he’d organise a hockey game for children who desperately needed distraction and fun.Ìý

He would not break a principle for himself, or for a gold medal at the Olympics.

But years later, he would do it for others, to bring some light and laughter to a terrible place.

For me - there is the man.

MUSIC - CHOIR:Ìý THINK OF HOW GOD LOVES YOU (Composer: James MacMillan)

ANNA:

God of all -

Of young and old, famous and hidden;

Of the strong and the frail,

The happy and carefree, and any of us, all of us who struggle to find light in life -

Be here, now, in our hearts, in our minds.

MUSIC - CHOIR:Ìý NOTRE PÈRE (Composer: Duruflé)

Sung in French in honour of the Paris Olympic Games

Ìý

ANNA:Ìý
If we are grieving, be with us now, in every biting second

and every long night.

Comfort us.

If we are lost and afraid,

Be near, be near.

Ìý

We pray for parents who grieve,

For families and communities crushed by violence

And the hammer blow of the loss of a child.

Be with them.Ìý Comfort them.

In towns where rage and violence have destroyed property and places of worship,

And brought fear and chaos to ordinary people’s lives -

We pray for peace.

Ìý

Bring light and strength through the love of neighbours and friends.

Give strength to the care-givers, and the peacemakers,

To the politicians who have the will

And the words to bring peace.

May Eric Liddell’s spirit of kindness and love and determination

Be a hope and a spur this morning

To each one of us.

In God’s name we pray,

Amen.

ANNA:
In a radio programme in 2012, some of the people who spent years of their youth in Weihsien internment camp told their stories of the man they calledÌý - Uncle Eric.

They were Joyce and Joe Cotterill, Stephen Metcalfe, and Peter Bazire.

MUSIC: FLJOTAVIK – SIGUR ROS as before

JOYCE COTTERILLÌý We just knew we could talk to him about anything. Probably more than we talked to our parents at that time. I would meet with him and we'd talk about what I had read, and what we’d prayed about - surrendering our wills to the will of God. And the word surrender still means a lot to me, and I do try to do it all the time.

STEPHEN METCALFEÌý Most of us were wearing rags and quite out of the blue, he came up to me and said, Steve, I see your shoes are worn out, you’re not wearing anything and it's February, midwinter. And I’ve fixed these so that you can use them, when he handed them to me, they were his running shoes, and he had tied them all up with string or, you know, sewn them together. And he said, you'll get two or three weeks’ use out of those. They obviously meant something to him.

PETER BAZIREÌý February 1945. It was a particularly cold winter and we in the Salvation Army band - I was then 14 playing the trumpet - we played outside twice a week, and on the Sunday it was outside the hospital. Eric was dangerously ill, and we heard that there was a request from Eric for us to play ‘Be Still My Soul’, one of Eric's favourites. It was well below freezing, we had chapped lips, cracks on our fingers, but it never occurred to us to do anything other than just to go on playing.

JOYCEÌý I was sitting by Eric's bed and we were actually talking about surrender again, and he, he had a seizure and his head went right back. In the middle of saying, ‘surrender’, he said, ‘surren…, surren…’, and his head went back. And of course, I rushed out and called the nurse and that was Annie Buchan. And she was so protective of him. And she pulled the curtains around his bed. And I was crying, of course, and she took me by the shoulders and she said, ‘What did he say? What did he say?’ And I said, ‘He said, surrender.’ And I know in the book later she said his last word was surrender. He must have died that night, I think. 21st of February.

PETERÌý It was almost indescribable to say what, the effect on camp.Ìý They were difficult days anyway - monotonous, people were falling ill more and more, that last year, particularly, the food was bad. This wonderful man wasn't with us any more.Ìý That time when he died was as unforgettable in our lives as was the Liberation Day the following August, when we were released by American paratroopers.Ìý Both were most memorable days for different reasons.

JOE COTTERILLÌý It was found to be a brain tumour, and that morning, it was amazing to see, what, hundreds and hundreds of men going around camp and you mentioned Eric, and they would burst into tears. I mean, even supposedly non-Christian men. People who admired Eric, but weren't necessarily Christian people. We were so – sorry is too small a word; so devastated.

MUSIC:Ìý ETERNAL MEMORY, STEVEN ISSERLIS As before

JOYCEÌý I remember the day after, there was an ice storm, and every twig of every tree was encased in ice, and it seemed so symbolic to me that the world had frozen. And he, you know, he wasn't with us anymore. And the centre of the camp had sort of stopped. I remember that both Annie Buchan and my dad took me to see him in a little shed behind the hospital, and he looked peaceful, but he wasn't there. He wasn't there. He was gone. And, I knew he was with the Lord he had served so well, and yet it seemed so dark in the camp without him. But he just was such an influence in my life.

PETERÌýÌý We are, and always have been, eternally grateful to Eric for his wonderful concern, presence, warmth.Ìý So thank you, Eric.

ANNA:
Decades later, we’re still remembering, telling Eric’s story for a new generation.Ìý I’m certain he’d be astonished and bemused by this.

He lived in the brilliant light of Olympic success and fame – and the deprivation and suffering of an prison camp.Ìý

And, in the most profound and powerful way, he treated both experiences the same, in a life he lived with faith and humanity.

MUSIC – CHOIR + CONGREGATION:Ìý BE STILL MY SOUL (Tune: Finlandia)