Courage, joy, emotion… A look back at the beautiful stories of the year 2022 in Nord Pas-de-Calais
At the heart of the upheavals of the year, characters with inspiring destinies punctuated 2022 with touches of hope. We have met a few of them. Retrospective.
Here are six extraordinary stories. Those of women and men from our region who fight for a cause, for a passion or simply against the vagaries of life. We went to meet them to tell their life story, between joy and sadness, fate and resilience, nostalgia and camaraderie.
It is a lesson in life and courage. 9-year-old Tom suffers from a rare genetic disease that prevents him from growing and causes joint pain. But at the Stade Portelois club, in Pas-de-Calais, he trains like everyone else, with the able-bodied.
“He is an adorable kid. (…) When he does not come to the foot, it is that he is in care”explains Tony Rageot, head of the club’s youth teams, who salutes the young player’s diligence. “If we don’t do it, we think who will do it for Tom?”asks Cyrille Filliette, president of youth training.
The hair turned white but the camaraderie remained intact. In Campagne-lès-Hesdin, in Pas-de-Calais, former students met to take the same class photo as 70 years earlier.
The reunion filled with nostalgia, which could take place thanks to Quentin Tellier, the initiator of the souvenir snapshot. “Young people tend to forget that today’s old people were young, and [qu’elles] they have a story to tell, he says. Bringing them together in one place all together on the same day is a real pleasure”.
Over the years, he has become the star of his supermarket where he works. Vincent, a storekeeper for 20 years in a hypermarket, has Down syndrome. Aged 44, he is independent and lives in his own house.
His extraordinary story is that of a baby with Down syndrome abandoned by his parents and a young nurse who decided to adopt him. His mother has just put their story in a book called “An ordinary life”. Not that much though.
In January 2021, he heroically saved an old man who accidentally fell into a canal with his car in Cambrai. Samuel, a firefighter from Paris, received the city’s medal for this heroic act last October.
On this occasion, he met for the first time the man he saved. A strong emotional moment.
This is the story of a promise kept. That of the singer Cali who had sworn to the former employees of Bridgestone, remained on the floor after the closing of their factory, to come and give a concert in their favor.
Long constrained by the Covid, the artist has indeed come to sing in Marles-les-Mines. An enchanted parenthesis, where joy and emotion appeared on the faces of former workers.
The taste for effort and challenge at any age is the life that Eliane Piret has decided to lead as this portrait tells. This inhabitant from Audinghem, in Pas-de-Calais, is one of the fastest seniors in Europe on an athletics track.
This year, she won the title of continental champion in the 80 meter hurdles, her favorite discipline. “When we hear the Marseillaise resound we are proud”, tells the sportswoman in our report.