The old gentleman placed the black and white photo in front of him, a precious relic of the family romance. He took care to exhume this photo and a few annotated press cuttings, even if, at almost 85 years old, his memory is still a faithful companion. Sitting in his Parisian living room with garnet walls, Jacques Vallerey lists one by one the first names of the members of the glorious skewer, immortalized in the immediate post-war period, in 1946, at the Tourelles swimming pool, in the 20e district of Paris. There are his parents, dressed in their Sunday best, and their children, five sons and a daughter, all in swimsuits, including “Jacky” himself, the youngest, 7 years old. Nearly eight decades later, he is the only member of the clan still alive, the last witness to an era when, from Morocco to France, they were nicknamed “the Fish Family”. “Swimming was our sport, we took it for fun”summarizes this former employee of the Palace of Versailles by drawing the thread of this singular story.
The whole tribe then lived for beautiful swimming, as well as the eldest, Jehan, born in 1925, as well as Georges-Urbain (1927), Gisèle (1930) and the twins Guy and Michel (1934). All shone in the water lines. “The extraordinary Vallerey family”, headlines the daily The Team of September 26, 1946, adding that it is undoubtedly “the most sporty in France”. The annals confirm this: Jehan was the European team record holder in freestyle, Gisèle the world record holder in the 100 meters butterfly breaststroke – at the time, the International Federation did not yet distinguish the two strokes. But the most gifted remains Georges-Urbain, commonly called “Georges” or “Yoyo”.
“He was a great champion”, murmurs Jacques, whose blue-gray eyes cloud over at each mention of this brother who was taken away by illness, at the age of 26. Despite the brevity of his career, “Yoyo” broke European records seven times, compensating for his modest height (1.73 meters) with an athletic build.
To understand this saga, we must return to the origins and the journey of the father, also named Georges. It was with this robust Breton that it all began, at the dawn of the 20th century.e century. This son of an admiral fell into the pot – salty – while learning to swim in the port of Lorient (Morbihan), his hometown. “He entered the 1924 Olympic Games as an amateur and was a finalist in the 100 and 200 meter breaststroke”, says his son Jacques. That summer, Vallerey senior saw the legend of Johnny Weissmuller being written before his eyes, in the Tourelles swimming pool. Before swapping the jersey for the loincloth, the future Hollywood Tarzan splashes all his class on the open-air setting built for the event, winning three gold medals.
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