There was no television and they were afraid that war would come. But on that April 25th they sold carnations of all colors – Current Affairs

The calendar marked April 25, 1974. Maria do Carmo woke up that Thursday morning and followed her usual routine. She was 35 years old and already had three children, the youngest being eight years old. She lived, as she still does today, on a farm in the municipality of Torres Vedras, where she was a homebody for decades.

In Lisbon, the revolution was boiling. But in the countryside, life went on as usual. “I was at home, taking care of everything. Cooking, which is what I had to do. My husband went to the Malveira fair at six in the morning to sell flowers. Poor guy, he had to sell something”, he begins by telling the SAPO24.

“A man came to the gate to see if I had blackheads. There were some there, I went there and picked them up”

The flowers would be those that are still famous today on the day in question: behind the farm, where vineyards can now be seen, there was a greenhouse where carnations were produced. “He arrived at the fair and sold everything. That day there were carnations of all colors, who knew what would happen? He sold everything, he was happy. She had the money, sometimes you had to be there until late at night”, she recalled, restless in her chair. “That day he went alone with the tractor. I never went to these things, I stayed at home. Women didn’t go.”

But the farm had a green gate, always open to the national road. And, on that day, it was the bridge to the revolution that was emerging. “A man came to the gate to see if I had blackheads. There were some there, I went there and picked them up. They were in the flowerbed of their bosses’ house, next to a lemon tree. Even those from the construction sites went. Took them all. I was left with empty flowerbeds, but also with the money from the carnations. At that moment we didn’t know what was happening.”

“I had carnations at home because I liked planting them. I only worked in the greenhouse when they needed more people, very occasionally. The person in charge was a lady from outside. She was a foreigner, at that time the name didn’t stick in our heads, we wanted to make money. She was French, they called her Madame, she was a very talkative lady”, she explained, gesturing to the side where the greenhouse would be.

Due to its proximity to the place, Maria do Carmo remembers the attitude of the workers on that April 25, 1974. “All the men who were in the greenhouse were shaken when they heard what was happening. It shook everything, women too. Everything that was there ended as soon as it was realized what was happening.”

Gina was one of the greenhouse workers, where she worked for around five years. To the SAPO24, describes your routine. “I did everything. We planted the plant, then weeded it and weeded it. We removed the ears of the carnations, that’s what it was called when you removed those small shoots, to then produce a bigger carnation.”

But that day was atypical. “I remember we were working there and it was confusing and scary. We knew what was happening in Lisbon through the caretakers, who heard it on the radio. We had no way of knowing and they told us.”

“The greenhouse had white and yellow carnations, and it got to the point where they were just red”

“They said that it was very bad in Lisbon, that it was a great revolution. They didn’t know what would happen. We didn’t have televisions, we didn’t have anything at that time. We were afraid it would turn into a war. Maybe it was our ignorance, we weren’t realizing it was for freedom. We were just afraid of war,” she confides. “Then we started to hear that it was all for the good, for people’s freedom. It wasn’t the war we were afraid of.”

And, from then on, the fear went away and the tradition remained: “when it was the 25th of April, a lot of red carnations were sold, they were always the most sought after”, recalls Gina.

Maria do Carmo shares these memories. After 1974, the greenhouse expanded. “Blackheads, blackheads, blackheads. In the following years it sold a lot. The greenhouse had white and yellow carnations, and it got to the point where they were just red.”

But the time of change also applied to people and the way of working — even in the village, the revolution brought evolution. “Even here at the greenhouse there were unions. A lot of things are over. There were layoffs, they didn’t want to work. The men arrived in the morning and stood there leaning against the door, they didn’t want to do anything. For whoever was the boss, it was bad.”

After the carnations, the new clothes and the food on the table

On April 25, 1974, the sale of carnations by João, Maria do Carmo’s husband, was the fastest ever. At the time, having an empty tractor meant having enough money to farm. And that’s what he did.

In this case, the stories come from those who were younger. Because the beginning of freedom was more than fear, the change in the greenhouse and the empty flower beds. For Nazaré, the youngest daughter, freedom smelled like new clothes and food on the table, with flowers sold until the end.

“I was eight years old. There are things I don’t remember, but this stuck. My father brought me some pants that day and something else for my sister. I remember the pants perfectly! This is what is used again now, these fine knits, with a crease at the front. But I always liked denim”, he says with a laugh.

The shopping didn’t stop there. “She sold the carnations, but immediately brought things home. I brought meat, I brought fish, that kind of food,” she recalls.

Returning home, the gate closed, the way people close their eyes when they are afraid. It was the carnation revolution. The little ones became big and Nazaré remembers that.

“They wanted to steal the land from their bosses”

“Shortly after finding out about the revolution, they knocked on the gate to tell my father not to let the owners in here anymore. The farm was divided between tenants and they wanted to keep the part that they took care of, that they farmed. They wanted to steal the land from their bosses,” he says. “But he said he didn’t change anything. They wanted to steal everything, the farms and whatever was there. They only fell silent when he said he would shoot each one. He didn’t give anything, but he gave his word and it worked,” he added.

Even so, history repeated itself. The desires for freedom continued. “A few days later another man appeared and wanted to start making wine with a hammer. It was Candonga wine, with more sugar, with more water to grow further. It was cheated. But my father almost threw the man out of here. He didn’t want to harm the owners.”

The memory of wine mixed with water awakens Maria do Carmo. “A milkman was coming here to bring milk and he also wanted to talk. She said ‘Oh João, don’t be stupid. You’re left with one thing [a quinta] here, don’t be stupid’. He said they had a lot and we had nothing. But my husband spent a lot of time here and then he told his bosses, he had to tell them”, he recalled, with the calm of someone who never wanted anything that wasn’t his.

“I started to see all the troops running away”

With the revolution, the fear of launching rockets at the party

Lourdes, sister of Nazaré, had been at a dance on the night of Wednesday to Thursday, in a village close to home. “She was 13 years old. I started to see all the troops running away, without understanding why. Then it was said that they had received a telegram in the early hours of the morning,” she tells the SAPO24.

And she wasn’t the only one to notice something different happening. Gabriela was the daughter of the partygoer that year and also remembers the confusion in those first hours of the revolution. Pregnant, she was with her husband at the dance and went to bed late, so she remembers what at the time seemed meaningless. “Some people commented that they heard songs on the radio that they found strange at that time of night, only later did we realize that they were the passwords for 25 de Abril. They hung up because they didn’t like the songs, if they had continued they would have heard something else”, he emphasizes.

“My mother thought her husband was going to be arrested for throwing the rockets”

But in the morning the distress arrived. Just like in the greenhouse, fear reigned at the party. “My father started throwing rockets in the chapel square, on Thursday, and a gentleman who was a chief corporal came to the window to tell him that he couldn’t do it, because of the revolution in Lisbon. He stopped the rockets and went home. My mother was so upset, so big… she talked about it so many times, she thought her husband was going to be arrested for throwing the rockets”.

For Gabriela, they were also tense moments. “I still lived at my parents’ house. It was a very tall house and he called me on the stairs to the first floor and told me that there was a revolution in Lisbon. I was very distressed, I immediately remembered what was in my stomach.”

However, nothing bad would come to the village. With the echoes of the revolution well established, Gabriela and her family emerged unscathed. As for Lourdes, her parents sent her back home, where new sneakers were waiting for her, the result of selling the carnations. Despite this, what remained were the images of that day. “We were all looking on television to see what we could find. We wanted to see all the revolutionaries and what was happening. It wasn’t all immediate like today, but on the field we also wanted to be part of history.”