HISTORY OF A LIFE
Preface
Written in a simple, clear, colloquial language, which engages us from the first page to the last,
this first-person narrative never ceases to amaze and delight us, as it recounts a breathtaking
succession of facts, adventures and encounters with people, in a context of diverse socio-
cultural backgrounds, in faraway locations. It is a distinctive, meteoric life-story that we follow
when we accept the author’s invitation to accompany him on a long journey down the years,
across time and continents, from remote areas in Alto Minho, such as Cousso, Cubalhão, Serra
da Peneda (where an underprivileged little boy would seem to be condemned to grow up and
work in insurmountable isolation), to immense open spaces, horizons he opened for himself
with his non-conformism and his insatiable desire for knowledge, moving on, his feet firmly on
the ground, from place to place, indefatigably, going each time a little further – first in a Portugal
which the New State discourse conceptualised as a national, multi-continental unity, stretching,
under the same flag, “from Minho to Timor.” The young Carlos Lemos will indeed go precisely
from Minho to Timor, crossing the seas, helping to clear virgin woodland on the banks of African
rivers, exploring the coasts of the then Portuguese territories from the Indian to the Pacific
Oceans, crossing borders and participating in the very Portuguese destiny of the migrant, in
faraway southern Africa and Oceania.
“Story of a life,” as he entitles it with characteristic modesty, is a fascinating collection of
tales, confidences, instructive observations and comments of great historical,
anthropological and political interest. The first temptation for the reader is to add some
expressive adjectives: “an exceptional life” or maybe “a fantastic life”!
From the very beginning, from childhood, what is most unusual and amazing is that all the
decisions, so judicious in the end, are his and his alone, after leaving school at an early age and
being left responsible for himself, in difficult jobs, jobs meant for adults, which awaken his
precocity and strength of spirit. And thus, through endless difficulties and challenges, he forged
a character that is independent, honest and tenacious, as well as sensitive and gentle.
In one of his first town jobs, in a popular café in Monção, an elderly, perspicacious
doctor, a regular customer there, unexpectedly tells him: “you are a perfect diplomat!”
That prophetic comment in particular has stayed in my mind because, about four decades
later, when Carlos Lemos organised my first visit to Melbourne, Australia, and I began to
know him better, I did not express (but could well have done) a similar appraisal. Here
was a born diplomat, extremely considerate and pragmatic, qualities that are rarely
found together. Here also was a migrant who was passionate about his native country,
who recognised and expounded the history and values of the Portuguese-speaking world
and promoted the interests of his fellow countrymen—even before he was appointed
honorary consul.
His natural gift for getting close to people (irrespective of their social class, academic
status, ideological tendencies, ethnic origin, age etc.), together with his uncommon
intelligence, explains something that he never mentions: the ease with which, as a
solitary young man, coming from a small rural village, he is accepted into the restricted,
selective circles of the elites of the time, or into social gatherings of students, with whom
he undoubtedly learned to reflect upon and debate all manner of questions.
In his new profession as an assistant surveyor, he happens to have a conversation, in
Cascais, with President Carmona, and he socialises with the President’s grandchildren,
that is, with young people of the upper bourgeoisie. Póvoa de Varzim is his next
destination, a defining moment on the long road that lay ahead of him. He joins groups
of students and graduates. It is then that he decides to resume his studies, completing
five years of high school in one single year!
Later, in Mozambique, he counts among his close friends Paulo Vallada and João Maria
Tudela and, together, they belong to the most exclusive of clubs, the Lourenço Marques
Club. In Johannesburg he is friends with Mary, Henry Oppenheimer’s daughter, and
with Tamara, the ex-bullfighter; in Durban, with Jonathan, Alan Paton’s son, as well as
with Alan Paton himself, who held him in high regard and in whose house he meets
personalities such as Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Walter Sisulu and Albert Lutuli,
and he has the privilege of being present at countless conversations among them; in
Hong Kong he was friends with Comendador Arnaldo Sales, who, as Mayor of Hong
Kong, was responsible for that city achieving high standards of excellence; in Timor,
with Ruy Cinatti, for whom he had enormous admiration; in Australia, with Kenneth
McIntyre, whose thesis on the Portuguese discovery of that country he defended and
publicised everywhere, from Portugal to Macau, where, thanks to his influence, there is
now a section of the Maritime Museum devoted to that unpublicised discovery and
where McIntyre’s original book on The Secret Discovery of Australia, 250 years before
Captain Cook, has been translated into Portuguese.
These are but a few examples of the many illustrious personalities we become familiar
with in the pages of this book. Among his less common, occasional acquaintances,
Samora Machel stands out (who cared for him as a patient at the Lourenço Marques
Hospital!); there was also, in a troubled Indonesia and during a most improbable
Balinese holiday, his meeting with the celebrity wife of the then Army Chief of Staff,
General Yani. Mrs Yani immediately invited the friendly Lemos couple to interesting
tours around notable sites, to receptions and dinners, and even to a visit to Sukarno’s
summer palace in Bali.
A Portuguese man whom everybody seems to like: Mozambicans, Timorese, Indonesians,
Egyptians, South Africans, Aboriginal people of the Australian desert, artists, men of
letters and scientists, entrepreneurs, ambassadors, politicians from countless countries.
An impressive, worldwide network of fraternal contacts, who remain friends forever,
whom he cultivates and often meets again during his many travels. How could he possibly
not feel tempted to look back at centuries of history and remember the Portuguese art
of making friends among the peoples of the world? In the twenty-first century, this
Portuguese man assures us that we are still the same people, with the same strong
desire to wander the world which was at the heart of the “golden age” of The Lusiads:
the movement of caravels, men, ideas, and, frequently, also of affections.
In the mid-twentieth century, at little more than 20 years of age, the adventurous Carlos
Lemos, a specialist in topography and hydrography, applied modern techniques for
surveying land and sea, first in Portugal’s small European rectangle, then in Mozambique,
in the Limpopo Valley on the northern border with South Africa, then in Timor, from
one end of the island to the other, and later, in the Australian desert, where he travelled
34,000 km traversing the Tanami Desert, mapping the territory for subsequent
exploration by the Bureau of Mineral Resources, and inscribing his name as a pioneer in
numerous sparsely populated locations in the central northern parts of Australia.
As I attempt to write this short preface (no doubt arbitrary and simplified) to his auto
biography, I must add that I consider it a worthy heir in the rich tradition of travel
literature, with a flavour of the sixteenth century, inasmuch as the author goes well
beyond the mere mention of facts and notes on locations of exotic beauty—which also
abound—to give us his appreciation of local customs, social and political conflicts, and
personalities who have left an indelible historical mark. It is the worldview of a cultivated
and cosmopolitan man, a sociologist, an observer of politics, qualities that he displayed
even before completing his university studies in these fields. He had begun those studies
in South Africa, where he met Molly, his future wife, and completed them in Melbourne,
a few years later. Here is an indefatigable “pilgrim in foreign lands” (as Adriano Moreira
would define him), willing to share with his reader a thousand and one vivid
experiences, vicissitudes and sentiments, as well as his sense of humour, which comes
through here and there and is usually aimed at himself as he mentions some
misadventures, chastising himself with great wit.
He married Marion (Molly) Murray, a young woman of British origin with a Masters
degree in psychology, who joined him on the “island at the end of the world”, Timor,
revealing her similar taste for adventure and wandering. This marriage would, very
soon, lead to the beginning of a “second life” for both of them: the life of migrants, finally
rooted in a new country. Molly’s academic career in Australia would be the stabilising
factor. From then on, this autobiography recounts new career interests pursued by
Carlos Lemos in Melbourne: university lecturer, secondary school teacher, commercial
bank agent, manager. It likewise reveals a new quality: as a leader and the principal
builder of a strong and cohesive community, where before there were only scattered
Portuguese, unknown to their host country. From then on, with his “impetus from
Portugal” (as Fernando Pessoa would say) and his capacity for mobilising people, the
history of the Portuguese in Victoria becomes intimately entwined with his own story,
an example that scholars of the genesis of contemporary migrant communities and of
the Portuguese diaspora should analyse, I would emphasise, as a case study. Indeed,
many Portuguese families were already settled in that Australian state of Victoria, but
they lacked the impetus for coming together. All that changed thanks to the action and
charisma of this “man of causes”. He began with the essentials: he founded a Portuguese
language school (in 1972), a radio program in Portuguese, of which he was the director
and the presenter, a “Committee for Community Activities” (which he chaired between
1976 and 1984), the “Portuguese Community Trust” (in 1983), a cooperative which
aimed to collect funds to establish a worthy community headquarters, a project which,
due to bureaucratic obstacles, was converted into the famous Café Lisboa, a high-quality
Portuguese restaurant in fashionable Fitzroy, near the centre of Melbourne, which
attracted many customers, including academics from the University of Melbourne, and,
as was its initial intent, provided a space open to community initiatives. Dr Lemos felt
obliged to manage the converted project, making it a great success. This is where he
welcomed many leading figures of the Portuguese-speaking world in their visits to
Australia: Dom Ximenes Belo, Dr Ramos-Horta, Dr Alberto João Jardim, Carlos do Carmo,
writers of the diaspora Vasco Calixto and Marcial Alves, the Secretary of State Correia de
Jesus, Governor Rocha Vieira (through whom a close collaboration with Macau began),
successive ambassadors and consuls from Sydney, and many others. Unforgettable was
the high-profile launch of a CD of music for the children of Timor, personally delivered
by Bishop Hilton Deakin as he stepped out of a helicopter that landed on a plot of land
near Café Lisboa!
Previously, as head of the Committee for Community Activities, Carlos Lemos sponsored
the first festivities of Our Lady of Fátima, with a procession that moved through the
streets of Melbourne and was attended by the Archbishop of the Diocese, Archbishop
Frank Little, the Minister for Immigration, the Consul-General from Sydney and other
leading figures (who naturally had accepted the invitation from a very special friend),
as well as a crowd of thousands of Portuguese who thus gained a profile in Australian
society.
The profile also of his mother country, of its history, its traditions and qualities, which
were very much in evidence in the migrant community, was a major cause that Carlos
Lemos embraced, very actively. In this connection, we should highlight his promotion of
Australian historian Kenneth McIntyre’s thesis on the unpublicised discovery of
Australia by Portuguese navigators, endorsed in the research of Peter Trickett and
Professor John Moloney (concerning place-names of Portuguese origin shown on
Dutch and French maps, particularly in the Vallard Atlas of 1547). Further, Carlos Lemos
has pursued the search for other links with Australia. First, the fact that Governor
Arthur Phillip, considered the founder of the modern nation, was an officer in the
Portuguese Navy. Second, the fact of the Portuguese nationality of Artur Loureiro, the
great painter from Porto, possibly better remembered nowadays in Melbourne, where
he resided for seventeen years, than in his native country. And third, the Portuguese-
Timorese solidarity extended to Bernard Callinan, an Australian military hero who
commanded the Independent Company during the resistance to the Japanese invaders
of Portuguese Timor during the Second World War, and who was also his friend.
There is, further, one outstanding achievement that I must emphasise, as in itself it would
fully justify the prestigious award that President Sampaio bestowed on him in 2002: his
proposal, eventually realised, to erect a monument on Australian soil commemorating
Portuguese navigators. Many and time-consuming were the negotiations which made
possible the procurement of the perfect location, on a beautiful hilltop against a backdrop
of the vast Southern Ocean, in Warrnambool (where, in the 1800s, numerous eye-witness
es reported sightings of the probable remains of a 16th-century Portuguese caravel), and
subsequently the inauguration of a replica of a Portuguese Padrão in the presence of the
highest representative of the State, the Governor of Victoria, together with other
dignitaries, including the Portuguese Ambassador, Ministers, Members of Parliament,
Kenneth McIntyre, a huge number of onlookers, and, last but not least, an enormous
media contingent. Warrnambool has since become a place of homage to the history
and presence of Portugal. The annual (now biennial) Portuguese Festival attracts
hundreds of Portuguese to the monument, which has been enhanced since the
inauguration of the Padrao by the installation of busts of Henry the Navigator and
Vasco da Gama, both gifts, at Carlos Lemos’ suggestion, from the last Governor of Macau.
This too received very extensive media coverage, which brought Portugal yet again into
the spotlight.
In which other countries or continents, among those we know were, without publicity,
discovered by the Portuguese, has Portuguese diplomacy ever achieved anything similar?
Clearly, nowhere else.
This is, thus, a splendid and unique achievement, crowning a trajectory of advocacy
for Portuguese people and values before governments of one country or another: a
lucid and courageous involvement in the domains of migration and the Portuguese-
speaking world, international politics, with very active participation in forums and world
congresses of the diaspora, with a voice that cries out forthrightly against the negativity
of historians who reject plausible theses proposing Portuguese greatness, against the
mediocrity of politicians and public servants, against injustice and intolerance.
A final word of thanks to Dr Carlos Lemos for his friendship and his precious
collaboration
over the decades in the fight for Portuguese migrants and for the Timorese. I also
declare to him, both as Man and as Portuguese, my admiration for the way in which
he has imbued his ever-dynamic life with a humanistic and fraternal spirit.
[Photo of Manuela Aguiar]
Manuela Aguiar
Ex-Secretary of State for the Portuguese Communities
Ex-Vice President of the Portuguese Parliament
Ex-Member of the Portuguese Parliament
