Mediterranean 2017 - part four

Cristo Rei - statue of Christ the King in thanks for Portugal (astutely) avoiding the Second World War - overlooks the Tagus as we arrive in Lisbon. 

At the ship’s bow, I can see where my father’s flying boat landed after the flight from Bermuda.

From Dad’s wartime notes: ‘… soon after 1:30 P.M. … we saw the mountains of Portugal coming into sight. We were soon flying up the Tagus with low-lying ground to our right and beautiful mountain scenery to our left. The sides of the foothills were dotted with brightly-coloured villas which are used as summer homes by the wealthier people of Lisbon.

Soon Lisbon came into sight on our left and the plane commenced lose height. We passed the city and dropped towards some sailing boats which were anchored near the shore. We went into a steep bank above the boats, seeming almost to touch the tops of their masts, straightened out, and came down to a perfect landing about half a mile from the shore. We had flown the Atlantic’.

‘Very soon a motor launch came alongside and we were pulled into the jetty. When we had tied up, some Portuguese officials came aboard and, after a short while, we were allowed ashore … The customs officials examined our belongings very carefully and purloined a carton of cigarettes which Brigadier Hardy (my note: another British Army officer) was carrying in his bag’.

The eggs bound for London passed inspection, but officials were doubtless delighted to supplement their wages - likely not for the first time - with marketable American cigarettes. They represented a regime doing rather nicely out of the war. Not only is it largely forgotten Portugal embraced fascism, but that the country adroitly juggled Axis and Allies, emerging in 1945 better off than in 1939.

That it did so was mainly due to António Salazar, seen making a speech and then, on the left, giving the fascist salute. Salazar was dictator from 1932 to 1968.

The Estado Novo - ‘New State’ - was - unsurprisingly - highly authoritarian and nationalistic.

As with Mussolini’s Fascist Italy, much of its teaching evoked the glory days of empire, a glory supposedly to be regained under the state’s unfailing direction. 

Unlike Dad, I exit the port unhindered by pilfering officials ...

... making my first stop in Lisbon at the impressive Praça do Comércio bounded by government buildings and cafes.  

Here Salazar gave a 1941 speech on national unity and neutrality. This was wartime Portugal’s largest political rally and included fourteen (!) military bands.

Not far from where Salazar extolled the regime’s accomplishments, a new museum covers the decades of dictatorship. The Museu Do Aljube was once an infamous prison.

Aljube is of Arab origin and means dungeon. The building was used as a prison since the Moorish occupation and, from 1928 to 1965, held political prisoners. 

Jailers, torturers and victims could see Lisbon’s cathedral. One wonders what went through their heads with an ostensible symbol of Christian mercy just across the street. More to the point, one wonders how the Church justified what went on in the prison. Actually, we know. Both Church and State united in combating the merest semblance of opposition, a struggle against political heresies, generally (and conveniently) equated with ‘Godless communism’.

The secret police headquarters survives in Lisbon’s centre. A plaque commemorates “ ... the thousands of men and women ... interrogated and tortured during the Estado Novo regime. Many of them died as a result of their ordeal.”

The old guard made a last stand here in 1974 when protesters surrounded the building and police opened fire. 

They claimed the regime’s last victims, killing four and wounding several.

In the world’s odd way, the building has been converted into fashionable apartments, offices and stores.

Posh refrigerators - one with Jimi Hendrix - are displayed rather as if the Gestapo’s old haunts were being used to sell expensive coffee makers.

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In the next post, I’ll tour wartime Lisbon with my father, city of light in blackout Europe, of limited rationing, of refugees, spies and glimpses of the enemy.

Mediterranean 2017 - part three

A quick deviation of sorts ...

My father was not a high ranking British officer, but his work in World War Two’s latter stages had some importance. This meant he travelled between Washington, Lisbon and London, not by convoy, but by the most luxurious airplane of its time. 

This was the British version of the PanAm Clipper mentioned in my previous post, a plane with individual berths, small dining area and lounge. As tens of thousands of servicemen crammed into troopships for a weary Atlantic crossing of a fortnight or more, a fortunate few took three to four days to make the journey. So few that  the ‘Short Snorter’ became a tradition.

This is a ‘Short Snorter’ from one of my father’s trips, a bank note signed by all the plane’s privileged passengers.

In Washington, Dad ...

... and Mum - then engaged - would prepare. British rationing limited eggs to one a week, so American eggs would be welcome at father’s family home in London. 

His account reads: ' … as an experiment, a dozen eggs which Patsie (my mother) had most carefully wrapped in cotton wool, etc., and finally sealed with scotch tape into waxed paper'.

The eggs and Dad would drive to Baltimore, board a BOAC flying boat, then fly via Bermuda to Lisbon. We shall see what happened to the eggs in a future post. For now, to my second stop in the Azores, São Miguel, which Dad spotted soon after waking in his comfy BOAC berth:

‘As I stood there shaving, the steward put his head in and said the plane was approaching the Azores, and that we should soon be passing over the island of San Miguel (sic) … I stood at the window lathering my face and thus I caught my first glimpse of the Azores. We were flying at about 5000 to 6000 feet, and we could see details of the island. We passed along the side of the island, about half a mile out to sea. I saw no signs of any town or city, but I was most impressed with the way every possible square yard of ground had been cultivated. Every ledge of the cliffsides (sic) even appeared to be bearing some sort of crop.

We were about ten minutes or a quarter of an hour passing the island. It was a perfect day; the sea appeared to be calm, although even the greatest waves would seem flattened out from such a height. And thus I had my first, and probably last, sight of the islands ...'

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Dad, indeed, never returned to São Miguel. However, for me, it’s been a welcome break on a number of Atlantic crossings. One goal today in Ponta Delgada, São Miguel’s largest town, is architecture from the time of Portuguese fascism.

Under the dictatorship (of which more in my next post), public works were symbols of state power, in effect, instruments of propaganda. So, noteworthy here are two unusual buildings. The structure above and below, the port’s customs office, is brutal and intimidating.

Some brief sunshine and flowers don’t improve what is a really ugly building.

The other structure is a crude attempt at a curious moderne.

That said, I quite like the swirly gates. 

The regime’s architectural efforts sometimes mixed traditional Portuguese styles with streamlined deco. I hope to show you examples when I arrive in Lisbon.

Democracy brings its usual - and, in this case - cheerful chaos ... 

... opposition, although an independent Azores seems a bit of a stretch ...

... and raft of competing media. I was struck by this newsagent’s display. Rare now to see people pausing to study printed - printed! - publications. I watch for some minutes and the readers are all elderly. 

Nearby, a work crew’s busy ...

... well, some are busy (wonderful face!) ...

... laying one of those decorative pavements for which Portugal is well known. 

Cement would be quicker and cheaper, but a tradition lost.

At the local branch of Portugal’s most famous bookstore, Bertrand Livreiros, I buy the trip’s first souvenir - ‘Do not leave for tomorrow the book you can read today’ …

… spot a reminder of the thousands from the then impoverished Azores who emigrated to Canada, some of whom have returned ...

... admire Casa Brasil’s parrot ...

... snap a selfie ...

... and pass a remarkably cheerful, late season swimmer on my way back to the dock. Coming up, Lisbon and more on Dad’s wartime egg mission. 

Mediterranean 2017 - part two

The harbour of Horta. The picture’s not panoramic, but Veendam’s stern deck configuration makes it seem so. 

Mark Twain, then a young man, arrived here in 1867 with the first cruise ship of American tourists.

The Quaker City, a side-wheel steamship, carried sixty-five pioneering passengers on a Mediterranean cruise of five-and-a-half months. Burdened, as are we all, with the national prejudices of our age, Twain and his compatriots warily considered a jaunt ashore: ‘A swarm of swarthy, noisy, lying, shoulder-shrugging, gesticulating Portuguese boatmen, with brass rings in their ears and fraud in their hearts, climbed the ship’s sides and various parties of us contracted with them to take us ashore at so much a head, silver coin of any country’.

We, on the other hand, pass uninterested immigration officials and, within five minutes, I am on my own at a handsome, 1933 Catholic Church.

Igrega de Nossa Senhora da Conceição or Church of Our Lady of Conceicao - the parish name -  is a happy change from so many dark, intimidating and pompous southern European churches. A 1926 earthquake destroyed its predecessor.

The stained glass is populated with jolly little cherubs, one of whom appears to be having a snooze. I am uplifted - and a little surprised - by a building from when the clergy and Fascist Portuguese government were in fond embrace. However, to give Rome credit, much Church architecture in the mid 20th Century was open, bright, even innovative.

Aside from a modernist church, a shop window reminds of when another startling symbol of progress arrived in a then particularly backward part of a backward country. 

Horta was a stop for transatlantic flying boats. PanAm's ‘Yankee Clipper’ first arrived in May, 1939.

Rough seas often made landings difficult (it took three attempts for Veendam to dock this morning) and planes were sometimes damaged. PanAm once paid a shipping company an estimated $20,000 (in the early 1940s) to get passengers off the island. 

Sadly, no flying boats now dramatically land … 

... and the best one can do is Horta’s Hotel do Canal with its PanAm route map and rather nifty large scale model Clipper.

However, Horta’s become a frequent transatlantic yachting stop and hundreds leave their mark on the marina walls, some quite artistic.

As for Mark Twain’s brief visit: ‘We walked up the middle of the principal street … every moment excited couples shot ahead of the procession to get a good look back, just as village boys do when they accompany the (circus) elephant on his advertising trip from street to street. It was very flattering for me to be part of the material for such a sensation’. 

But for a courteous nod or two from locals, no-one takes the slightest notice of me. This, I have found, is often an advantage for photography ....

I find a pleasant Portuguese red wine - Terrenus Serra de Sao Mamende, D.O.C. Alentejo Portalegre 2012 - for under ten Euros and return to the ship.