Tam's Tall Tales

- Chariots of Fire to Run Again


Eric Liddell in the relay race at the British Empire v USA meet
held at Stamford Bridge, London 1924. Graphic via Wikimedia Commons".





New Eric Liddell Movie On Stocks
Joseph Fiennes will play the part of Scottish athlete Eric Liddell in 'The Last Race - currently being made in China.

The story about the devout athlete who refused to run on a Sunday in the 1924 Olympic Games was the subject of Chariots of Fire which starred Ian Charleson, Ben Cross, John Gielgud and myself. ( I was an extra whose contribution cruelly ended up on the cutting room floor).

There is some controversy amongst the religious community, that Liddell's strong Christian beliefs will be airbrushed from the picture.

His niece and Liddell family spokeswoman, Sue Liddell Caton, said: "Without the Christian element in him, it just doesn't sound like Eric Liddell. "I would find it strange if there was no reference to Christianity. His whole life was based on the Christian belief - certainly when he went back to China."

Eric Liddell was born in China in 1902 to Christian missionaries James Dunlop Liddell and his wife Mary, originally from Drymen and Greenock.

He won Olympic gold in the 400m in Paris in 1924 but refused to take part in the 100m because he would not run on the Sabbath.

He returned to China to become a missionary and continued his work after Japan invaded in 1937. In 1943 he was held in an internment camp with about 2000 other Westerners in Weifang. Liddell gave up his place in a prisoner swap for a pregnant woman and died in the camp of a brain tumour just before the war ended.

The graphic here is © "Rolfmueller" via Wikimedia Commons

Please give me whatever feedback comes to mind via tamfromrampant@gmail.com.

Tam O'Ranter
2015

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