Pictures run chronologically, but in reverse. The most recent pictures show up first, and you can travel back in time all the way to the early twentieth century.

My parents, their two children and grandchildren

My paternal grandmother, known only as Avó Maria. I have very few memories of her. The most enduring is of visiting her house when I was 4 or 5. She had an old maid called Celeste who had gone mad, but still lived at my grandmother's apartment, and used to delight in hiding under my grandmother's bed. She would suddenly spring out with an insane yell, scaring the living daylights out of me.

My mother, Lídia ("The Rabbit"), aged 34 (1951). The "sinal" on by her face has been powdered out. There was no Photoshop at the time.

Lídia and Zé - Wedding photograph - 26th of March, 1953

Lidia, in an earlier picture (undated). Though she was terribly short-sighted, she was also a woman, and therefore vain about her looks. All her early pictures are without glasses.

Lídia was extremely studious. Here she is with a book in her hand, with family at Praia das Maçãs, near Sintra. My grandmother (top centre) used to have to forbid her to study and order her out to play.

My grandmother, with my mother (on her left) and my mother's sister Gertrudes. Gertrudes was not very studious, and loved having fun, singing and dancing, and later on, boys. She contracted tuberculosis and died when she was only about twenty, after a period in a sanatorium in Caramulo. In an effort to help pay for her sister's medical care, my mother used to give extra lessons in physics to high school and university students. At that time she was herself a student. Although she could have used a tram or bus, she walked the 5km or so each way to save money.

My maternal grandfather with my aunt Gertrudes - she is 11 months old at the time. My mother's father died when Lídia was seven: her clearest memory was of him washing her hands before dinner. In the same year that her husband died, my grandmother also lost her father, and her one year old son Nélinho to TB meningitis.