Maurice Garin - Retirement

Retirement

Garin retired from cycling and ran his garage in Lens until his death. The garage is still there, although wholly changed from Garin's era. An unnamed writer recalled:

I remember Maurice Garin well. I met him and talked to him almost every day because we lived in the same area, 200m from each other, at Lens. Le Père Garin, as my father and grandfather called him used to bring out a chair in fine weather and sit in the doorway of the little office of the service station he owned at 116 rue de Lille in Lens, under the sign for Antar fuel and oil. My barber was in the neighbouring house and I used to go there once a month to have a crew cut, which was the fashion in those days. My friends and I were aged seven to ten and on our one-speed bikes we used to pin numbers on our back... and we never missed riding past Maurice Garin in a tight group so that he would see. It's strange that nobody thought to take a picture of me, the little kid, alongside the first great champion of the biggest race in the world. But life's like that.

Maurice Garin was far from an adulated hero, even less a rich champion (he spent his retirement running the service station), and I don't remember any special celebration in his honour. Television crews didn't come from home and abroad to interview him. until he died in 1957. And the rue de Lille, where he lived, still hasn't been renamed the rue Maurice Garin.

Garin kept his interest in cycling. He returned just once to his birthplace, in 1949, to see the Tour pass through. He began a professional team under his name after the second world war. The Dutchman Piet van Est won Bordeaux–Paris in 1950 and 1952 in the team's red and white jersey. On the Tour's 50th anniversary in 1953, Garin was among several old stars waiting at the finish as part of a celebration.

He is buried in a family grave with his wife Desirée. The inscription on the headstone says —
Familles Brot, Garin et Darnet.
Desirée Maille (1890-1952),
— Épouse de
Maurice Garin (1871–1957)
Mme Vve Marie Brot, (1863–1948)
Henri Darnet (1905–1970)
Denise Darnet (1904–1982) 'Cimetière Est' (section F3), Sallaumines, near Lens.

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