The radio was always turned on around six in the morning, every day. Maria João’s parents liked to listen to the news at breakfast, before heading off to work. That day, we began to “systematically hear Paulo de Carvalho” playing.
When taking the usual route from home, in Algueirão, to Lisbon, the family noticed that there were unusual movements in the area.
“We always came to Lisbon with the radio on in the car, without knowing what was happening. However, always with the same song. The famous song ‘And after goodbye’”began by counting.
Before going to Liceu Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho, the father left his wife at the Casa da Moeda, where he was a lecturer, and his daughter who was waiting, in the Arco do Cego area, for the school van. Maria João’s father then went to Alvalade, where the company where he worked was located. On that sunny April day, when they were crossing the old Lisbon-Sintra highway, currently IC19, they saw “a column of soldiers with G3, helmets, jeeps, along the entire line and on both sides” of the Queluz Palace.
Along the way, the 13-year-old wondered why there were soldiers in Queluz and the radio only played Paulo de Carvalho’s song. She knew nothing, but today she recognizes that, at the time, her mother “had a little bit of an idea of what was going on”, mainly due to the relationships “she had with Judite Barroso, Maria Barroso, Mário Soares, and people from that generation”.
“My mother had a little bit of an idea of what it could be, but she didn’t understand it, or what it conveyed to my father, I didn’t understand”he stated.
Excerpt from the special illustrated publication of the newspaper “O Século”, published on April 27, 1974
Upon entering the capital, he didn’t notice anything strange or unusual, but when he arrived at Arco do Cego, he saw that there were “G3 soldiers in hand” welcoming the employees of the Casa da Moeda.
“Passing through the military at the Queluz Palace (…) wasn’t very traumatic”declared Maria João. “Now when I arrived at the Casa da Moeda and saw G3 soldiers in hand, I confess that my 13 year olds were very offended”.
Now 63 years old, the jurist remembers her own reaction between laughter and jokes.
“The curious thing is that I wasn’t scared. I was furious,” she expressed. “As a saint they were welcoming us (…) with weapons in hand?!”.After that reception, Maria João remained at the entrance of the building waiting, as usual, for the bus to the high school. And if she was already furious, as she admitted, she became more restless when the soldiers “sat on the stone stairs with the G3s next to them, like Copacabana”.
“I remember shaking furiously. I wasn’t scared, I wasn’t scared. But she thought that was excessive. It was such an ostentatious and excessive theater for normal people.”then described. “Today I understand, but at that time I didn’t. (…) Because I always learned that [os militares] they were an authority to respect. For me that was a contradiction in terms.”
Meanwhile the van arrived and went to school. On the way to high school, he doesn’t remember noticing anything different. There was no traffic disruption or abnormal movement. What’s your surprise when you notice that the students’ entrance to the Maria Amália Vaz de Carvalho girls’ high school was also surrounded by soldiers with G3.
“The military was at the door where we entered and they wouldn’t let us in and they wanted us to enter through the main door [dos professores]”, he reported, not hiding the apprehension he felt at that moment. “As if that wasn’t enough, two soldiers came to give us orders as if we were part of the troops too. (…) It was the biggest mess possible.”
Reluctantly, she ended up following the military, entering the school and staying with her classmates in the inner courtyard.
“I didn’t take classes. I didn’t see the teachers or the principal”, she retorted, remembering that during the morning, the soldiers who were in the courtyard went to the gym “to look for rackets and played badminton and ping-pong”, leaving their “weapons against the wall”. An action that Maria João still considers to this day to be somewhat irresponsible, because no one knew what was going on and some girls were afraid of that military apparatus on the school grounds.
At school, no one “talked about anything, especially because most people had no idea what was happening”. Because “most of the girls were terrified, there were no conversations”.
“That day no one spoke. And since the teaching staff didn’t show up either, I think it accentuated the weaknesses even more.”
It was only at the end of the morning that the students were “informed that they would go home that day”. Without being able to contact her parents, Maria João ended up going to her godmother Elisa’s house, as she refers to her mother’s godmother, who lived close to the high school.
For the rest of the day, we heard about “what had not been achieved in the previous March, we talked about names of people who could pass on some information, we tried to have the televisions always on, to see the developments and we waited to know what what was going to happen”.
General Francisco da Costa Gomes was the cousin of his godmother Elisa, as Maria João called her, and “he had already given her some information”, which, as he was still young, he did not immediately understand.
For Maria João, the revolution was in part “taking advantage of a group of soldiers, who had the right to their demands”, but she believes that despite this “it resulted in something very positive”.
“There was great positiveness in that there was no bloodshed”.
“We tied the teacher with the national flag”
A few kilometers away, still in Greater Lisbon, José Pedro did not experience the 25th of April in the same way. At just eight years old, he was at home, near Algés, when it became known that there were different movements in the city and that people were being asked not to leave.
When reviewing the notebook of the second class, which he attended at the time, José Pedro confirmed that he only had recorded the “classes until the 24th” and that he only returned to school on the Monday following the 25th of April”.
“This happened early enough for me to not go to class,” he joked.
Before the Carnation Revolution “there had already been an attempted coup d’état”, he began by recalling.
“So there was already a certain nervousness in the air”. But according to their own memories, the strangest thing that day “was that the radio played Grândola Vila Morena uninterruptedly”.
Excerpt from the special illustrated publication of the newspaper “O Século”, published on April 27, 1974
Although he recognizes that he was very young, he remembers “a certain apprehension” that he felt at home throughout the day, while his parents tried to understand the situation.
“They didn’t really know what that would lead to,” he said. “Even in Algés there were movements, something happening”, he also remembered, not forgetting the “Armed Forces jets” that he saw pass by.
In the following days, “the conversations became much more political.” And when reliving those times, he said that “the only thing he did was drawings of the military and explosions”.
Now 58 years old, the former Biology teacher in the United States highlights that the episode that marked him most happened the following Monday when he returned to school.
“When we returned to the classroom, (…) the teacher did a survey about some political parties and then, to symbolize the end of the Estado Novo, we tied her to the chair with the flag cord [de Portugal]”, he said with joy.After April 25th, José Pedro’s family faced major changes, mainly because most of them lived in Angola.
“They went from having a pretty good life to being in a relatively precarious situation. And this was reflected in the family in an obvious way.”
Furthermore, one of his uncles had been “a PIDE border agent” and therefore “there was a certain concern” about his future.
At eight years old, he thought that what was happening around him and what he saw in the news was normal.
“I had never experienced a revolution, so it seemed like a perfectly normal revolution to me”he concluded.
Window overlooking the Revolution
The April captains’ movement, later transformed into the Armed Forces Movement (MFA), which overthrew the 48-year dictatorial regime, founded by António Salazar, had the city of Lisbon as its main stage. But the impact of the Revolution reached other areas of the country.
In Coimbra, a city where political and student unrest was already felt long before that month of April 1974, there are reports of crowds taking to the streets. And it was from the window of his house that Jorge, at the age of 12, watched the celebrations of the April Revolution on Antero de Quental Street.
It was a normal spring day, it was sunny and Jorge left in the morning towards Liceu José Falcão. As he walked down the street where he grew up, he noticed that “people started to gather around the PIDE building”. Since 1970, he lived in Antero de Quental, in a building right in front of the old PIDE/DGS of Coimbra, where he was “practically the epicenter of the actions of the 25th of April” in the city.
When he arrived at school he noticed “some hubbub, some talk about a coup d’état”.
“I was 12 years old. A coup d’état, for me, was a strange thing to hear.”he described, and although he didn’t know what was going on in Lisbon, he felt that at “school there was already unrest”.
It was only when he returned home at lunchtime that he had “some difficulty” on the street until he reached the door of the building.
“The troops had already taken over this area, because a number of people were already beginning to accumulate here.”, he explained while showing the square that separates his family’s residence and the PIDE building. “They were already controlling the arrival of people. As I was a resident, they let me pass.”
“We lived in this house right opposite. On the floor below”, he indicated, adding that From the moment he entered the house that day, he “watched everything that unfolded” on that street through the window..
“This was a sea of people”he recalled.
Monument to the 25th of April, in front of the old PIDE/DGS building in Coimbra. Photo: Inês Moreira Santos – RTP
The street was cut off from the headquarters, a few meters higher. No one could pass or get closer to the place.
“For two or three nights, if I’m not mistaken, people didn’t leave here. They remained here, without conditions, standing. They were civilians.” And the military, he continued as he walked down the same street, “started to take up positions because it was starting to get dangerous, as PID/DGS employees were inside”.
“They began to see that sooner or later this was going to give bad results”, because the crowd “waited the departure of PIDE employees to go to prison”.
The security forces, therefore, “took position here in order to prevent an assault on the building itself”. It was a dangerous situation, he stressed, considering that that “PIDE employees also had weapons and the military were outside trying to prevent people from getting closer”.
And stopping in front of the building, he told how the military was preparing the PIDE agents to leave, with “berliet-type trucks”. Despite the troops trying to keep the crowd calm, “there were stonings, people tried to get closer to them”.
From the window of his house, he also saw, as he said, some cars belonging to International Police and State Defense agents being set on fire by civilians.
“They were parked around here. The cars were vandalized, set on fire, completely destroyed.”he also remembered.
“This was really the epicenter of the 25th of April in Coimbra”repeat, like enthusiasm when remembering how he experienced the day of the Revolution “in the front row”.
In the following days, there were still people who demonstrated on the street of the Finance and Accounting specialist, now 62 years old, next to the headquarters.
“It was an on-site experience,” said Jorge jokingly.
Despite the eagerness of Coimbricense civilians to catch PIDE employees as they left, as a result of the repression that they themselves represented, “there was a festive atmosphere”, although “difficult to explain”.
“Coimbra was already a very young city at the time”, he acknowledged. And remembering those first days after April 25th, she said that “some people were up in the trees”.
“Some spent the night in the trees, because it was a good place to see. Nobody moved. Space was expensive”he joked.
His father was a soldier, he had been posted to Guinea-Bissau, but at that time he was home on holiday.
“We never felt any fear that day. Especially because we knew the field well and got along well with the military. My father was in the military,” explained. “It was a different environment, of lightness. People were at ease, they invaded our house and then left. We were at the window and there was a crowd of people here.”
Even in the city center and with the University of Coimbra nearby, that street was home to many students.
“There were many rooms rented to students,” he argued. “There were very young people with some political awareness and in the following days they were all here.”
Arab invasion of the Iberian Peninsula
In a district a little further up, in the interior of the country, the Revolution reached the Portuguese more calmly. In the conservative city of Viseu, it was on the radio that many found out about the movements in Lisbon, without immediately realizing that winds of change were blowing there.
Rosa was 10 years old in April 1974 and remembers “there being a lot of commotion at home” when she woke up.
“From what I remember, we didn’t get to go to school because the parents had been notified that there were no classes that day”he said, remembering his father’s habit of turning on the radio early every morning, when he got up.
“So he found out early and woke us up to tell us we weren’t going to school.”
Rosa and her older sisters didn’t go to school, but they also didn’t stay at home waiting for news, “because it was at that time when, when there was no school, everyone came out to play, there was no television”.
“We dressed normally and came to the street”he revealed, although he didn’t know why there was no school that day. “There was great uncertainty. In my house, the situation was quite nervous because we didn’t know what was going on.”
Without any idea of what a revolution was or what event was changing the normal routine of that day, Rosa began, together with the children who were with her.