Charly Gaul - Life As A Recluse

Life As A Recluse

Gaul moved into a small hut in a forest in the Luxembourg Ardennes. There he wore the same clothes every day - patterned green trousers, studded walking boots and a sweater or jacket - and went walking with his dog, Pocki. He had a telephone but never answered it. He removed his name from the phone book. His rare excursions were to buy everyday goods and shopkeepers who met him spoke of a man who was ill and depressed, that he hadn't recovered from separating from his second wife. When journalists found him to ask more he confirmed he was distressed but declined to say more.

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"I'm sorry but it was all so long ago. Please leave me in peace. I'm just an old grumbler."

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He appeared now and then anonymously beside the road during the Tour de France, unrecognisable with a beard, straggling hair and a paunch.

His isolation lasted until 1983, the 25th anniversary of his victory in the Tour de France and the year he met his third wife, Josée. He moved with her into a house in the south-west suburbs of Luxembourg city. There he spoke to Pilo Fonck of the radio and television station, RTL. "I was as happy as a kid," Fonck said. "I had the interview of my life, the one that everybody wanted to have." Of his life as a hermit, Gaul told Fonck:

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"I bought myself a little portable television and I connected it to the battery of my car to watch the Tour de France. When the battery ran down, I called the man at the garage. I had travelled plenty enough. I told myself 'You're happy here, at peace.' There was nothing but the trees and the water. I passed my days planting vegetables. Deer used to come and eat at the end of my garden.
How do I explain what I did? Well, it's difficult to go back into normal society. Today, of course, I laugh about it, but that period was essential: without it, I wouldn't have been able to tackle the final slope, that of old age."

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