Lisbon 1964

04/11/2014 - 09h36

It is fifty years since I first arrived in Lisbon. I checked by old passport. It was issued in I955 when I went on a school trip to the South of France, We stayed at Cannes on the Cote d'Azur. The passport photo shows me at 14 years of age.

Since my passport was renewed until 1965 it was with this same passport and photo that I was admitted to Portugal on March 1st 1964. I had arrived from Madrid on the overnight Lusitanian Express at the Santa Apolonia railway station in Lisbon.

I walked along the edge of the Tagus River, past a fleet of wooden boats with tall white sails, readying for the days fishing. I asked the Guardsman standing in his sentry box beside the statue of Dom Jose I at the centre of the "Praca do Comercio" where I might find accommodation. He pointed north.

I walked up to the Rossio Square. Then on up the "Avenida de Liberdade" towards the statue of the Marques of Pombal who had reconstructed Lisbon after the great earthquake of 1755. Not that I knew who Pombal was. There was in fact very little "liberty" in Portugal in 1964. The dictator Antonio de Oliveira Salazar ruled.

I found a pensao on the Rua Rodrigo da Fonseca. The problem was no one would speak to a foreigner. I put an advertisement in "Diario de Noticias" seeking students who would exchange language instruction. To my surprise I received hundreds of responses.

I then had a letter from Dr Ayala Monteiro of the Gulbenkian Foundation. I suspected that my tutor, Harry Hinsley, at St Johns College, Cambridge University, had been in touch with him. I learnt many years later that Hinsley had been a key figure at Bletchley Park during WW2, which was the British government's code breaking espionage centre.

Dr Ayala Monteiro asked me if I was interested in a scholarship. I had been surviving by writing an occasional column for a regional English newspaper. When I sent in my request he laughed. No-one could live on that he exclaimed. He wrote a budget for me. For the rest of my stay in Lisbon I received a very welcome cheque each month.