A tribute by his sister, Estelle.
There are hundreds of ageing people all over the world who have a life-long love affair with a beautiful little former Treaty Port formerly called Chefoo, now Yantai. Norman was born there in 1925 of missionary parents and grandparents. There was a school there founded in 1881 for children of missionaries, by Hudson Taylor, the founder of the China Inland Mission, who was the uncle of our grandfather.
Our parents, Howard and Mary Cliff, both pharmacists, went with baby Norman into the poverty stricken interior provinces of Henan and Shanxi. Our father was transferred to Hangzhou to be the Principal of the Bible Institute there and we were sent to Chefoo School.
Prison camps
In 1938, Chefoo was occupied by the Japanese and after Pearl Harbour in December 1941 we became enemy aliens. The whole Chefoo school was interned by the Japanese. Norman and I spent a year in small Chefoo camps and then two years in a large camp at Weihsien. Norman spent his time learning Chinese, NT Greek and Hebrew, as he had a natural flair for languages. He taught in the camp and one of his colleagues was Eric Liddell of Chariots of Fire fame. He died of a brain tumour a few months before the war ended. Norman helped to carry his coffin to our little graveyard followed, like the Pied Piper, by a hundred children. He wrote: ‘It was during the trying years of internment that I first felt the call to missionary and ministry work. On my 19th birthday, walking thoughtfully within the electrified wires surrounding the camp, I made a promise to God that if he would release me from this harsh environment I would give my life to him in full-time service.’
