We are absolutely delighted to announce that Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal has agreed to become the Patron of The Eric Liddell 100, which will mark the centenary of Eric Liddell’s world record breaking victory in the 400 metres at the Paris Olympics in 1924. This exciting development is being led by The Eric Liddell Community.
HRH will head up an impressive group of people from the world of business, education, government, sport and other disciplines who have come together to plan and implement a number of high-profile events for 2024 to mark the centenary, as well as other events which will launch in 2024 to provide a lasting legacy of Eric Liddell for future generations.
The aim of our Patrons visit was for HRH to learn more about the charity, the work we do and to meet the clients we support and also to receive an initial briefing regarding the exciting plans for The Eric Liddell 100.
Our ties to Eric’s legacy are strong and we are in close touch with his three daughters who live in Canada and his two nieces who both live in Edinburgh, one of whom is Sue Caton, our Patron of the charity. Our international ties with organisations all over the world that celebrate Eric’s life and legacy have grown and so the idea came to mark the centenary of his legendary win at the Paris Olympics in 1924 at the Paris Olympics in 2024. The main focus will be celebrating and safeguarding his legacy for the future.
It is great to know that The Princess Royal supports our 2024 plans and that she will be involved in future developments.
During her visit, The Princess Royal toured our building and met some of our volunteers, dementia clients, carers, befrienders, staff members, Trustees and Partners, all of whom were very pleased to have a chance to meet Her Royal Highness and to spend some time in her company.
The feedback we received from our guests was really positive.
“Thank you for inviting me for the visit of the Princess Royal. She was absolutely lovely, she spoke to everyone.”
“I want to say a big thank you for allowing me to be present at the Royal visit, it felt very special.”
“Just to say well done to everyone for a wonderful day and experience with HRH. Mum really enjoyed herself and so did I”.
“It was nice, and she was very friendly, everyone was. She was interested in everyone and came across very genuine, it was encouraging”.
“Wonderful day. She was very interested in all of us and especially our past occupations. Everything was lovely we had a very nice day.”
In commemoration of her visit, The Princess Royal unveiled a plaque that will be situated in an area that the public will be able to view, and she also signed our Visitors Book.