Birth and Early Childhood

Lisboa - Portugal

I WAS BORN

I was born on the 15th of April 1974, in the Maternidade Magalhaes Coutinho in Lisbon. I was my father’s 6th child (and 1st girl) and my mother’s first born. According to my mum I was born with a sugar deficiency in my blood and as a result was rushed away to special care to receive some serum. I was there for 4 days so my parents weren’t allowed to see me or hold me for the first few days in my life. Those were different times. Hospitals were still very cold scary places and parents feelings or fears were not really concerns of the hospital - all they kept saying to my mum was that I was fine and for her to stop fussing! (She still fusses though even after 36 years). After 4 days we were finally reunited and a couple of days later I was finally allowed home.

Janelas - Bairro Alto

We lived in the heart of Bairro Alto, one of the traditional Bairros that constitute the old zone of the capital. Nowadays Bairro Alto has become a very trendy place to live and is also perhaps the main centre of night time entertainment for the Young and the old. When I was born it was quite a dodgy collection of rundown buildings and cobblestoned roads full of taverns where old man drunk themselves silly and where prostitution and drugs were a constant presence. Especially in the top part of Bairro Alto you could see women sitting without knickers in their door step selling oral sex for 500 escudos (£2) or full sex for 1000.

Taberna do Agostinho - Travessa da Espera 1975

In the mornings you would also see drunken man sleeping off their booze in the public sidewalks. A lot of the buildings were in a terrible state and the community was mainly old. Many people use to say that most women living there were or at least had been in the past prostitutes. Personally I think that was a bit of an overstatement but nevertheless it fuelled my understanding as to why my mother hated living there and made a point of telling me not to mention it to anyone unless I had to. She also didn’t like me being friends with people that lived there and when I started school she made sure I didn’t go to my local school in Rua da Rosa and instead she put me in this other school about 1 mile away.

Rua da Barroca - Bairro Alto

We lived in a tiny 1 bedroom apartment with 1 window in Rua da Barroca. At the time I was born, there was me, my parents, my brother Paulo, my brother Pedro and my brother Luis living there. Paulo and Pedro shared the bedroom while I, Luis and my parents slept in the living/sleeping/sitting/dining room.

Being a baby I really can’t remember anything from that time therefore some of these next memoires are more what I call hearsay memoires!

When I was born the mothers of Luis and Pedro were still very much around and use to follow my mother around town calling her names and intimidating her. According to my mum they even put a rumour around saying I could not be my father’s daughter as he ONLY made sons! This of course put a big strain on my mum’s emotions and to try and calm them down my dad decided it would be better if he just carried on seeing and sleeping with the other 2! When I was 2 Luis’s mum took him away and that was the last I say of him for about 10 years. Pedro’s mum remarried when I was 5 and took him to live with her. I did however see him often as he would come over most weekends. That however also stopped when I was about 11. I saw him again about 5 or 6 years later. Paulo was always there as his mother had abandoned him when he was 9 months and eloped to England with another man. The entrance and exit of my brothers in my life was always a constant. When I was 8 I was introduced to my eldest brother Manel. He is 20 years older than me and we forged a very strong bond that lasts until today.

Play time

According to my mum I was always very quiet and able to entertain myself from a very early age. Although our flat was tiny, I had my little corner by the window where my toy box was kept. As a typical little girl I enjoyed playing with dolls and had a little play kitchen with which I played for hours on end. I also loved sewing and knitting and learned very early how to crochet and how to embroider. I use to make my dolls loads of clothes which would generally fall apart! You noticed I said I loved sewing and not that I was any good at it! I wasn’t allowed to go out and play but did spend a lot of my time at the window chatting and playing battleships and countries with my facing neighbour and best friend Nuno. I also enjoyed dressing up and singing and dancing in front of a mirror. I was convinced I would be a pop star one day and had a complete fascination for England and all that was English.

Praça Luis de Camoes - Where I use to paly and feed the pigeons.

Most Saturdays my brother Paulo use to take me to morning pictures in the CineCamoes. I loved Heidi. Sometimes we would also watch kung fu films and on the way home we would have a cake from the cake shop down our road. He also used to take to the park to feed the pidgeons or to his youth club called something Janeiro, but I couldn’t tell my mum that because she didn’t like him going there. It was our secret!

Communist Youth Event Poster

When I was 7 Paulo got married and moved out. He was only 17 so it was a BIG shock. My father tried to stop him and threatened him with death if it didn’t stop (my dad was always very dramatic) but my brother was in love and that was that. To be honest I don’t know if my parents were worried about them being so young or if it was the fact that the girl’s parents had been political prisoners in the past due to their connections with the communist party, and both her and my brother had joined the communist youth and were opened about their political convictions..... My father was a member of the PPM at the time, the Portuguese Monarchic Party so their views couldn’t have been more different. Between you and me I don’t think either of them had any actual knowledge to back their convictions! For my brother it was a bit like being a lesbian vegetarian with a rainbow jumper syndrome, and for my dad I think he thought having a king was cool. Also it was still very new the sense of freedom in Portugal, people were enjoying the freedom of speech for the first time in years (I will tell you why in another chapter so as not to divert from the focus of this one – my childhood) and everywhere everyone discussed politics.

Like many other countrymen of the time, due to a decline in the agriculture and an increase of economic needs, my granddad had left his beloved Concavada to work in Lisbon. My Nan stayed and he went home to my Nan once a fortnight. He rented a room next door to us and came for dinner around our house every day. He always looked distinguished and although almost bald he carried a comb on his shirt pocket and always smelled lovely.

The "fancy" diploma - copy of equivalent

He was very proud of his education – no, it wasn’t a degree or anything; it was only the 4th year which was compulsory in his time. However his 4th year like he use to say over and over again... was almost like a degree by today’s standards and to prove it he even had a very fancy diploma where it said that not only had he passed, he had done so with distinction! – “You ask a doctor to name all the kings of Portugal from D. Afonso Henriques and see if they know.” Or “...ask them to name all the regions, capitals and rivers, and see if they know”. – It was always the same going on. I remember thinking that a doctor didn’t necessarily need to name all the rivers in the country in order to cure someone but obviously I never said that to my granddad. Instead I use to have spontaneous lessons from him and by the age of 8 I already knew more than many doctors (as to say, I could recite the names of all the Kings, and name all the rivers!). He also had the most beautiful hand writing and we spent many hours together writing and talking about history. Sometimes however he would get to our house quite tipsy as he liked his wine maybe a little too much and in those days he would sometimes pick fights with my dad, generally around politics.

My granddad was also a communist but again I don’t think he knew what it meant to be a communist. For him I think he was just annoyed that he had to leave the countryside in order to make a living.

Concavada

In the summers we would often go and stay with my grandparents in Concavada (a small parish 3 hours away from Lisbon) and from there I guard the fondest memories of my childhood. You see, my grandparents’ house at the time had neither piped water nor electricity, so it was like travelling back in time going to visit them. I was also allowed to play outside all the time and my granddad even hung a swing for me in an orange tree in the back yard. Sometimes my parents would let me stay with my Nan for one or two weeks. My granddad also worked in Lisbon and only came home every other weekend, so I would be alone with my Nan. She was amazing! She had chickens and rabbits and I was allowed to feed them and collect the eggs. She would tell me amazing stories about speaking animals and magic princesses and at night we cuddled up together and again she would send me to sleep with a story.

I also remembered the fields of poppies and daisies, the white washed houses and the colourful fountains. There were no cars in the village and the roads were dirt tracks. There were also no shops and the bakers chariot would come around every morning together with the milk man’s cart. A fish van would come once a fortnight and there was also the knick knack man that had a cart selling soap bars, pots and pans, olive and oils lanterns, brushes and brooms and other funny looking objects and products that I never quite understood what they were for. Everyone in the village had a back yard where they grew vegetables and most people like my grandparents also raised animals.

As there were no shops people often swapped their produce - a system of bartering. I would often go out with eggs and come back with beans! My grandfather worked in a coffee factory in Lisbon so he would bring coffee home in small paper bags. My Nan would then sell those to the neighbours either for money or for other goods or services. Sugar was something not readily available and even when around it would be unrefined and yellow, so to sweeten anything my Nan would normally use honey. People were very friendly and everyone knew everyone else. You also addressed the elders as uncle or auntie.

Each Summer they had their street parties where a live band would play and everyone would dance. Not dance like now - it was still partner dancing. My granddad was a phenomenal dancer and used to teach all the young ladies in the village to dance. My Nan wasn’t keen on dancing so she would sit and chat with like minded ladies while my granddad spent most evening on the dance floor. He taught me to waltz, tango and many other dances which I no longer remember. There was also the local children’s folklore dance group rehearsed by my aunty and there was one year that I was actually able to join!

But my claim to fame came much earlier in 1979. I believe this to be one of my earliest memories. Manuela Bravo had just won the Eurovision Song Contest (or so I thought, it turns out she came 4th) and I loved her song so much I decided to go and ask the band if they could play it, I was 5 years old. I guess they must have thought I was very cute so they asked me if I would like to sing it in the microphone just like Manuela and of course I said yes. And I did! I ended up singing 2 songs, the Balao Sobe and the opening song to my favourite TV Show “Marco”. My family was shocked as the first they knew of me singing was when I was already singing on stage with live music (I must say they were very good improvisers.) and then all the village clapped. Now at the time there was a little girl that had won some kids festival that looked a lot like me so someone asked my dad if it was me and of course he said yes. I never understood why he did that because then when people asked me I had to say yes as well and make up stories about it. Even when I was in my teens people still talked about it and then it was like – the poor girl that won a competition but then was forgotten!