TE19 Iberian Adventure

Passing Time in Portugal

Judy’splayfulexuberanceperfectlytemperedmystoicGrandfather.

By the end, Salazar’s Portugal was a byword for repression and backwardness. Salazar departed peacefully and shortly after his regime was toppled by a coup, nearly 50 years after the one that ushered him into power. Salazar left no money and few possessions. Democracy arrived and EU membership followed suite, living standards rose and horizons broadened. “In ’07 Salazar came first place inaTVpoll toestablish thegreatest figure in Portuguese history, beating illustrious monarchs, and even our great explorers.” In the old Algarve I came to recognise something of Portugal’s Everyman, left behind by decades of economic reforms. To them the forced obedience and uniformity of thought was a kind of reassurance. Simplemen andwomen and their dogged resilience; a heroic dignity attained from their refusal to simply fade away in this forgotten corner of Europe. Now these two aged Algarvians were enviably at ease with the world. Honest people raised from the land, ill-at-ease in themodernworld. The product of a distant past that did not understand their granddaughter’s restlessness, her yearning to uproot. With donkeys and dictators on our mind we bid the neighbours farewell and staggered up the hill in the moonlight. • 163 “He gave us our identity” Vitorino smiled. “‘God, family, nation.”