“I consider myself a fortunate man.”
Gaston Collet is born in Lausanne in 1921. His mother was from Piedmont and worked as a cook in a hotel, and his father was a sommelier. His parents are forced to sell the family hotel, where he had worked since childhood, after the stock market crash. He grows up with his four siblings in a loving family. Nevertheless, his childhood is marked by challenges: because of his small stature, his shyness and his origins, he is often teased and excluded. Although he is one of the best in his class, he often remains alone in the schoolyard. This weakens his self-confidence for many years. As a teenager, Gaston Collet begins to take an interest in science and electricity. He is eager to learn and always wants to know everything: ‘where, what, when and how’. He wants to study electrical engineering at vocational school, but his parents are against it due to the economic crisis. Instead, he attends a business school in Basel, where he is fascinated by the chemistry and materials science classes and considers a career in customs, but this plan is also thwarted by the war and the closure of borders.
In 1945, he takes a job with the postal service in Lausanne, where he begins a long career. After the difficult experiences of his childhood, it is his career and social advancement that enables him to reinvent himself and gain self-confidence.
In Lausanne, he meets Esther, the telephone operator with ‘beautiful black eyes’. The two marry in 1948 and start a large family with five children. ‘I had an admirable, incomparable wife,’ he says. The two enjoy a happy family life for 64 years, until his wife’s death in 2012.
At work, he rose through the ranks and became head of the Lausanne Post Office. At the age of 50, seeking a new challenge, he joined the senior management team at Swiss Post in Bern. He is delighted with the work he has accomplished, which plays a major role in his life.
After their children left home, Gaston Collet and his wife travel around the world. He continues to travel in Switzerland into his old age on foot and by train.
Gaston Collet likes to say that he has lived two lives: one before and one after retirement. Of his life after retirement, he says, ‘I let myself go wild.’ Passionate about paleoarcheology, history, astronomy, botany, and music, he takes classes at the Université Populaire, plays the piano, and restores electrical appliances, in line with his childhood dream. He also became a tour guide in Lausanne, sharing his curiosity and love for the city.
At 102, Gaston Collet is still curious and a tireless optimist. He attributes his longevity to his intellectual curiosity, his social network and the daily yoga exercises he has been practicing since the age of 40 as well as hiking with the alpine club up to the age of 95. It was never his goal to live so long; he has always lived from day to day, with a deep faith in God and filled with a rich spiritual life.