On the main artery of the city of Beja, the exhibition “April 74/75-Um ano de Diário do Alentejo” is available, in the heat of the revolution”, in which 25 double panels reproduces 50 covers of Portugal's only public newspaper, property of the district's municipalities and which this year celebrates 92 year old.
There were many who passed through the “Diário do Alentejo” (AND), which called itself an “independent regionalist newspaper”, what were the cases of the director at the time of the revolution, Melo Garrido, or the journalist too, José Moedas, father of Carlos Moedas, Mayor of Lisbon.
At the “Portas de Mértola”, What is the Bejense pedestrian street known as?, the exhibition draws pedestrians' attention to those glorious, but also difficult days of the Revolution. Francisco Vitor, of 77 year old, known as “Chio”, worked for more than four decades at the DA, being one of the printers of the editions of the years 70, before and after 25 April.
“I arrived at the newspaper months before the assault on the Beja Barracks (which occurred on New Year's Eve 1961 to 1962) and because I was the youngest I went on foot to take him to the Infantry Regiment 3, the evidence for censorship to review. They were difficult times. There were first pages that were changed five times”, recalls.
The times were those of lead. “The linotypists wrote texts that came out in lead, the tests were carried out in print, journalists reviewed and went to censorship. Na height, the entire newspaper was made in our printing house. The impression, the cut, manual folding, strapping and then transport to the post office. Some rolls were also sent by mail to the agents in the district.”, ends.
“The news was heard on the radio. Journalists had two or three radios in the newsroom and wrote. There were whole days, It was a terrible commotion”, remembering Francisco Vítor, the names of Melo Garrido and José Moedas, as “unavoidable journalists” in the DA.
“Chio” recalls that on the day of the Revolution “there was a rush for the radios. As soon as you heard the MFA anthem, you stopped everything to listen to the news. I don't forget that on the day 26 April, a police officer entered the premises and shouted: “Don’t shout too much, this will change”, defending the return to a sad past that is still very fresh in everyone's memory.
Looking back, remember that you lived the best and worst moments of your life, inside the Diário do Alentejo. "In 1979 the newspaper closed. We were overdue for wages, no money to put food at home and no prospects of saving the newspaper or jobs. It was a painful time. In 1980 the city councils, through the Association of Municipalities, bought the title. I worked at the Post Office and José Moedas picked me up and I came back.”, looking sadly at the sky.
But the opposite also happened in the life of “Chio”, intramuros in the newspaper. "It was the 25 April. That was all left-wing people and there was a culture of democracy and a warning about what was being prepared. It was without a shadow of a doubt the happiest day of my life.”, reveals pointing to the big title on the front page of the day's newspaper 26: “Armed forces overthrew Marcelo Caetano’s government”.
Today, in what was the DA's lifelong home, purchased and recovered by the Municipality of Beja, the Center for Archeology and Arts is installed.
Teixeira Correia
(journalist)
