The woman who made the carnation the symbol of April 25, 1974
In 1974, Celeste Caeiro was 40 years old and lived in a room she rented in Chiado with her mother and daughter. She worked in Rua Braancamp, cleaning the Franjinhas restaurant, which had opened a year earlier.
The restaurant opened on April 25, 1973. The manager wanted to celebrate the restaurant’s first anniversary by offering carnations to the clientele.
He had bought red carnations and had them in the restaurant when he heard on the radio that there was a revolution in the streets.
She sent everyone away and added: “Take the flowers home, there’s no point in them wilting here”.
Celeste then took the Metro to Rossio, where she remembers seeing the “chaimites” and asking a soldier what they were.
The soldier, who had been there since very early in the morning, asked her for a cigarette, and Celeste, who didn’t smoke, could only offer him a carnation. The soldier immediately put the carnation in the barrel of his rifle. The gesture was seen and imitated.
On foot to Largo do Carmo, Celeste kept offering carnations, and the soldiers kept putting them in more rifle barrels.
Source: RTP

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