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0:00:10 > 0:00:13The athlete Eric Liddell is the man whose story was immortalised
0:00:13 > 0:00:15in the Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire.
0:00:15 > 0:00:17A strict Christian, he refused to run in the 100m
0:00:17 > 0:00:19at the Paris Olympics in 1924 because the race
0:00:19 > 0:00:28was being held on a Sunday.
0:00:28 > 0:00:30He went on, however, to produce an astonishing performance
0:00:30 > 0:00:33in the 400m, to win gold and become a national hero.
0:00:33 > 0:00:36But a new book shows that was only part of his extraordinary life.
0:00:36 > 0:00:38For The Glory is the work of Duncan Hamilton,
0:00:38 > 0:00:43who is a former journalist and an award-winning sports writer.
0:00:57 > 0:00:59Duncan Hamilton, this is a story that we think
0:00:59 > 0:01:01we know from Chariots of Fire.
0:01:01 > 0:01:07What was it that made you want to dig deeper?
0:01:07 > 0:01:09I think it was basically I wanted to know what happened next.
0:01:09 > 0:01:13If you remember, Chariots of Fire ends, simply saying that he had died
0:01:13 > 0:01:15in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp.
0:01:15 > 0:01:21And, of course, Chariots of Fire goes up only to 1924
0:01:21 > 0:01:24and Eric Liddell died in 1945, so there was an awful lot
0:01:24 > 0:01:29of space to go and look at.
0:01:29 > 0:01:32We will look at it in a minute, but first of all, let us go back
0:01:32 > 0:01:35to 1924 and those Olympics in Paris.
0:01:35 > 0:01:39Here is a man who decides he is not going to run the 100m on a Sunday,
0:01:39 > 0:01:43but then goes on to win gold in the 400m.
0:01:43 > 0:01:45I think it is worth reminding us what an extraordinary
0:01:45 > 0:01:48achievement that was.
0:01:48 > 0:01:51It was, because he couldn't really train for the 400 metres
0:01:51 > 0:01:53until the spring of that year.
0:01:53 > 0:01:57He only had about half a dozen races before he went to Paris
0:01:57 > 0:02:03and he was given absolutely no chance of winning.
0:02:03 > 0:02:05The British Olympic Association were very confident
0:02:05 > 0:02:10that he would change his mind and that he would run on a Sunday.
0:02:10 > 0:02:14What I found out was that, even six weeks before the race,
0:02:14 > 0:02:19they were still saying that he would race, in the 100 metres.
0:02:19 > 0:02:22He was there, in their official team.
0:02:22 > 0:02:27He wasn't in the 400 metres.
0:02:27 > 0:02:29I mean, one of the things that people don't realise
0:02:29 > 0:02:32is that he had his own trainer, which isn't mentioned
0:02:32 > 0:02:34in Chariots of Fire.
0:02:34 > 0:02:37And he did a tremendous amount of work with him.
0:02:37 > 0:02:40He got him ready.
0:02:40 > 0:02:44And the performance that he kind of put on was fabulous.
0:02:44 > 0:02:45He won well?
0:02:45 > 0:02:51Yes, it was a world-record time.
0:02:51 > 0:02:54And I think, also, what people tend to forget is that, had he raced
0:02:54 > 0:02:56again, in 1928 in Amsterdam, he would surely have
0:02:56 > 0:03:00won gold there, too.
0:03:00 > 0:03:03He had this very unorthodox running style.
0:03:03 > 0:03:08His great rival Harold Abrahams called him the human spider?
0:03:08 > 0:03:11He ran with his head up, so he wasn't looking at the track,
0:03:11 > 0:03:15he was looking at the sky, really.
0:03:15 > 0:03:17Great Britain appointed a team manager who was also
0:03:17 > 0:03:21a part-time journalist.
0:03:21 > 0:03:25And if you read some of his articles in the weeks before the Olympics,
0:03:25 > 0:03:27literally, only a fortnight beforehand, he is effectively
0:03:27 > 0:03:30saying that he has got the wrong running style,
0:03:30 > 0:03:36and that he just won't win a single solitary button.
0:03:36 > 0:03:40So, afterwards, Eric Liddell could really have been nasty
0:03:40 > 0:03:43about it but of course, he just wasn't that kind of person.
0:03:43 > 0:03:48He just won his gold medal. Afterwards, he went to a tea dance,
0:03:48 > 0:03:54on the Champs-Elysees, and that was it.
0:03:54 > 0:03:57So here's this man, he has got the world at his feet
0:03:57 > 0:03:59and he turned his back on athletics.
0:03:59 > 0:04:01He decides to dedicate his life to the church.
0:04:01 > 0:04:03He becomes a missionary and he goes to China.
0:04:03 > 0:04:05What was it about this period of his life that
0:04:05 > 0:04:09particularly fascinated you?
0:04:09 > 0:04:15I think it was the fact that China was a very primitive country then.
0:04:15 > 0:04:18When you think about it, in terms of the number
0:04:18 > 0:04:20of missionaries murdered, on the very day he left,
0:04:20 > 0:04:30The Times was reporting about another missionary murder.
0:04:32 > 0:04:34They could have virtually kept that set in their type,
0:04:34 > 0:04:37because virtually every fortnight, for the next 15 or 16 years,
0:04:37 > 0:04:41there were missionaries murdered regularly.
0:04:41 > 0:04:46It was a very dangerous place. There was the Nationalists,
0:04:46 > 0:04:50the Communists, the guerillas, the warlords.
0:04:50 > 0:04:53It was a bit like Game of Thrones, really.
0:04:53 > 0:04:57China was in a complete state of flux.
0:04:57 > 0:05:00And I think to go and be a missionary there, you really
0:05:00 > 0:05:06needed to be a very, very brave person.
0:05:06 > 0:05:10It is worth remembering the sacrifices that he made,
0:05:10 > 0:05:15a family, ultimately.
0:05:15 > 0:05:17He sent his wife Florence who was pregnant at the time
0:05:17 > 0:05:20and their two children away from China back to Canada
0:05:20 > 0:05:22where she was from and you dedicate the book to Florence,
0:05:22 > 0:05:23why is that?
0:05:23 > 0:05:26She was just a remarkable woman.
0:05:26 > 0:05:30I think it must have been love at first sight or at least,
0:05:30 > 0:05:40there must have been a fabulous bond there, really.
0:05:41 > 0:05:44And for her to put up with the kind of missionary life.
0:05:44 > 0:05:47He sent them off, thinking that he would probably join them
0:05:47 > 0:05:48in about a year's time.
0:05:48 > 0:05:50But then, of course, Pearl Harbor happened.
0:05:50 > 0:05:51Japan entered the war.
0:05:51 > 0:06:01They were already in China, fighting.
0:06:03 > 0:06:05And he just found it impossible to get out.
0:06:05 > 0:06:08And of course, he ended up in a prisoner of war camp?
0:06:08 > 0:06:09He did.
0:06:09 > 0:06:10That was around early 1943.
0:06:10 > 0:06:13I went to the camp in China.
0:06:13 > 0:06:16There are still buildings left of it.
0:06:16 > 0:06:19I think what amazed me the most is the size of it.
0:06:19 > 0:06:25It was so small.
0:06:25 > 0:06:28There was a total of 2,100 people there throughout the three years
0:06:28 > 0:06:33of its life and it was at its worst when he first went in.
0:06:33 > 0:06:36There were 1,800 people living in a space that wasn't much bigger
0:06:36 > 0:06:38than two football pitches.
0:06:38 > 0:06:44And the conditions were appalling.
0:06:44 > 0:06:47One thought kept reoccurring to me as I read this book,
0:06:47 > 0:06:50this man Eric Liddell, he was almost too good to be true.
0:06:50 > 0:06:56What did you make of him?
0:06:56 > 0:06:59I was waiting for somebody to tell me something about him
0:06:59 > 0:07:02that was a little fault.
0:07:02 > 0:07:07But somebody once said of him that he was the closest thing
0:07:07 > 0:07:09to a saint that they had ever met.
0:07:09 > 0:07:11Somebody told me a tale, in the camp everybody was allocated
0:07:11 > 0:07:12a particular job.
0:07:12 > 0:07:15You were supposed to do your job, and keep yourself ready
0:07:15 > 0:07:20for that job.
0:07:20 > 0:07:22Whereas, she said she would see him walking around the camp
0:07:22 > 0:07:26and he was doing other things too.
0:07:26 > 0:07:29And he was never, never kind of rested.
0:07:29 > 0:07:31He never rested.
0:07:31 > 0:07:35He just worked himself to the absolute bone.
0:07:35 > 0:07:38And it was in the camp that he died, tragically just months
0:07:38 > 0:07:40before it was liberated?
0:07:40 > 0:07:46Yes, about six months before liberation, he had a brain tumour
0:07:46 > 0:07:50and, sadly, the X-ray equipment that would have told him what he had,
0:07:50 > 0:07:55only came into the camp, two weeks after he died.
0:07:55 > 0:07:57But remarkably, he was running races in the camp.
0:07:58 > 0:08:07Keeping morale up.
0:08:09 > 0:08:12Finally, Eric Liddell, what would he make of athletics today?
0:08:12 > 0:08:16I don't think he would compete in the Olympics nowadays.
0:08:16 > 0:08:18I think he would be appalled by the drug-taking,
0:08:18 > 0:08:21by the commercialism of it.
0:08:21 > 0:08:24And I don't think that he would compete.
0:08:24 > 0:08:28He would probably have found another sport,
0:08:28 > 0:08:30I certainly don't think he would have been going
0:08:30 > 0:08:33to Rio, for example.
0:08:33 > 0:08:36Duncan Hamilton, thank you very much for coming in and talking to us
0:08:36 > 0:08:39about For The Glory, The Life Of Eric Liddell.
0:08:39 > 0:08:40It has been a pleasure.
0:08:40 > 0:08:43Thanks.