Many people took – and still take part – in the making of “Méjane’s Legend”.
Out of the spotlight are even more people participating in it. Farmers, carpenters, gardians, secretaries, managers.
People are always moved when remembering their time spent on the estate.
Tonight’s story told through some families’ eyes is a tribute to these devoted and quiet people. We can’t name all of them, and we hope they understand.
We are paying tribute to all of them from the Annie and Serge Belagamba family’s perspective, as well as Jacky and Michèle Sileste’s one.
Annie Belagamba works as a secretary and has been living in Méjanes for 42 years. Her husband is a farmworker for 39 years. He also takes part in courses camarguaises and some shows alongside Ramon Gallardo.
They remember their long and busy days in the fields, at the office, and in the arenas that often ended in a pétanque game with other people living in Méjanes or at the Mazet du Vaccarès restaurant. They make their way there, horse riding, to enjoy a cheerful diner with Robert Rouzaud, at the time manager of the domain’s restaurant. The couple’s wedding is celebrated in Méjanes as well as the baptism of their son. Annie remembers that one evening, she went to look in her 2CV with her friend Josy, spouse of the gardian Michel Fabre, for a bull that had escaped from the manade.
Their husbands had arrived horse riding and found the two pregnant spouses, nearby the bull that had made his way down to the lower Méjanes. “They got so scared that they weren’t happy at all that we took such a risk! However, I can’t remember that story differently than a funny one”.
In 1985, the Méjanes Bulls Club is created, and Annie, parallel to her work, is the co-financial officer.
During these years, Annie sees from her office, the gardian huts taken on her husband’s tractor for destruction. This breaks her heart. The dozens of huts now too worn down can’t receive tourists anymore. We will have to wait until 2021 to be able to rent huts again in Méjanes.
Jacky and Michèle spend 37 years on the estate. They arrive and start to work as waiters at the restaurant.
Jacky then becomes Méjanes’s gamekeeper, and his spouse takes over Madame Chabot as mommy’s helper at the mas. Jacky tells us that Paul Ricard’s guests used to say they preferred to hunt one duck in Méjanes rather than 150 elsewhere.
Later in 92, when hunting is stopped, Jacky becomes the Little Train driver. For 27 years, until 2019, he goes around the swamps that he knows every part of, every animal, and every flower in his locomotive.
Some of the clients becomes his friends. Jacky declares with some tears in his eyes that one of the most exciting moments of his life after his marriage and his children’s birth is to have met with Paul Ricard during the celebration of the firm’s 60th birthday. Jacky, who dreamt of being a raseter but admitted to not be fit enough for it, tells with humor that all the arenas’ wooden planks undoubtedly still have his forehead mark on them.
Amongst the celebrity he met in Méjanes, is Gérard Jugnot, Gaston Deferre, Eric Cantona,…
“Lorenzo’s show for the Feria du Cheval de Méjanes of 2019, is according to him, the greatest tribute to this place’s magnificence,” concludes Jacky.
