Living in a dictatorship

What was it like to live in Portugal during the dictatorship? Was it that bad?

When the revolution of April 25, 1974, happened, I was still a kid and didn’t live in Portugal. Therefore, I don’t know about something I have not experienced. But some things stuck in my memory. Whenever I came on holiday to Portugal, I observed, with the curiosity inherent in any child, certain very strange things, which were difficult for me to understand.

My maternal grandfather had a bicycle, do you remember those from the Yé-Yé brand?

It was just like this one, the same colour and everything.

What confused me was why I couldn’t ride it, and my grandfather, from time to time, would let me take a ride, but very carefully. “If the police show up, leave the bike and run away.” Well… it was mandatory to have a licence and the bicycle also had to have a licence plate. I didn’t have a licence. But the bike was in order.

Another thing that was different from what I was used to, were the bathrooms (even the public ones). They looked like this:

Every café or restaurant had one. It makes sense! But what about the toilets I was used to? Maybe it would be different in big cities, I don’t know what to say. Oh, and the toilet paper? Normally, they were old newspapers, which we had to crumple to make them softer.

One more curiosity, to own a lighter, the smoker also had to have a licence. I don’t remember this one, but the older ones told me. And I have no reason to doubt it.

And what about television? I had never seen battery-powered televisions.

They were simply connected to a battery, like those in cars. When the battery got low, the image would fade. I even thought it was fun that the image got smaller until it disappeared 🤪.

Seeing entire families on top of this.

Or this

Taking a shower was fun too.

All you had to do was heat the water and fill the tank.

Drink water from the cistern, kept in a jug with a cork cover, to keep it cool.

Or go get water from the source.

And drink from a “Cucharro” made of cork. Scoop made of cork or cucharro.

Women washing clothes at the river, walking for miles to get there. While the mothers worked hard, we kids splashed around in the water looking for frogs or turtles.

Every year we camped at the free camping.

Free camping near the sea.

Making a nap every day, you didn’t leave the house during the “sunny” hour. It was very hot at Alentejo.

Installing electricity took months. The first phone my parents asked for took two years to get a free line (and this was back in 1986).

Another thing I liked very much was the most natural in the world, but I wasn’t used to it. Yes, it was just sleeping with the windows open at night and leaving the house without locking the doors. The neighbours enter the house saying, “Hey neighbour, do you have some flour you can lend me?”.

Anyway, there are many other things that I don’t remember now. But these are my memories of a time when I lived in another country, which seemed like another world when I arrived in Portugal and everything was different. It wasn’t worse. It wasn’t even better. It was different!

Of course, there was also the problem of freedom, the economy, fear and many other things… but for me that was it. A simplistic and childish view. But many of you will certainly have other, much more detailed memories about this period, which you would like to share with all of us.

Thank you for reading until the end.