Jacky Ickx, the pilot who dreamed of being a gardener

How were the early years of this young Brussels resident with a romantic destiny? The one who would be nicknamed much later “L’enfant terrible” always knew how to put his immense talent and incredible combinations of circumstances to good use.

Published on 02/10/2022 à 09:00

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Jacky Ickx, the pilot who dreamed of being a gardener

Contrary to what this photo suggests, Jacky Ickx did not grow up in the adoration of Motorsport © Ickx Family

This article can be found in our Jacky Ickx Collector. 102 pages which retrace the career of the Belgian Champion! He is availableavailable on newsstands and in our online store in version paper et PRESENCE.

A bourgeois house on the edge of the Bois de la Cambre, in Brussels, the company of a brother, Pascal, eight years older. A couple of Japanese nightingales who never stop singing and twirling freely in this space which smells of the open spirit of loving parents. When was the youngest Jacques Bernard called Jacky so that people would stop confusing him with his father who had the same first name? The person concerned does not remember it. His first Proust madeleines, on the other hand, have the smell of tobacco and the metallic noise of Remington typewriters, the ones that his father used at night to write articles for the daily newspaper. The sports, while smoking Clan's stuffed pipe.

« I had a happy childhood, he tells us straight away. My parents cared about my well-being without imposing too strict rules on me. I remember the magnificent Saint Nicholas (en Belgique, les en