“Here, it's quieter than in Le Creusot where I lived for seventeen years,” admits the septuagenarian who joined his older brother in 1965 and worked there as a mason. He married Jacqueline in 1969 and had three boys. In 1982, the family moved to Saint-Claude to follow his wife's parents who returned to their hometown.
Work hard
After two to three years in the public works company Baroni, Sébastien Uras found a job as a mason in Nyon (Switzerland) where he worked for fifteen years before retiring at 60. Getting up at 5:30 a.m. every morning, he came home after working 9 hours a day in summer and 8 hours in winter. “There is no such thing as bad weather in Switzerland, we worked indoors! » he says.
Their three children, Fabrice, Stéphane and Michael, did part of their schooling there. Michael, the youngest, was 9 years old when he arrived and spent his middle and high school years in Saint-Claude. Having become a professor of modern literature in Pont-de-Roide (Doubs), he is a recognized writer, whose six novels have been mentioned in our columns. His brothers are also teachers. Fabrice, the eldest, teaches French as a foreign language in Paris, Stéphane, the youngest, history-geography and French in Lyon.
“I thank France every day”
A shame, coupled with great pride, for their father who admits to not knowing how to read and write French well. He has not applied for naturalization and never will! He nevertheless confides: “I thank France every day”. Sardinia holds a big place in his heart and he returns there almost every summer, to Alghero, the cradle of the family. The last of eight children, he is now the only survivor but he wants to return to his native country and his children too.
Even though he no longer cycles, Sébastien likes walking in the streets of the city or the surrounding area and remembers walks in the mountains or sledging in the winter, when he took his boys to the snowy upper Jura. In retirement, he also practiced choral singing, within the choirs “Atout Chœur” and “A Tempo”. The tenor regrets not being able to sing anymore, for health reasons. “I miss the choir,” he admits.
France
