About to turn 91 (on May 2), sick and weakened, the woman who became known as "Celeste dos Cravos" no longer wants to talk about the revolution, now passing the word to her granddaughter, Carolina Caeiro Fontela, to "rectify gaps in history" that successive years of news have perpetuated.

"There are many people who still think she was a florist [who gave a carnation to a soldier], but my grandmother was not a florist", her granddaughter told the Lusa agency, recalling that Celeste worked in a 'self-service' in the Franjinhas building, on Rua Braamcamp, in Lisbon.

Separated from her husband, "for reasons she never wanted to tell", and at the time with her mother and a 5-year-old daughter in her care, the woman, who "lived in a humble house, without radio or television", only found out that there was a revolution when she arrived at work, on April 24, 1974.

On that day, Carolina said, the 'self-service', which was completing a year, would not open its doors and the boss, "who had ordered carnations to offer to customers and decorate the space, told the employees to take a bouquet each".

Celeste took her bouquet of carnations - which, as she still insists on saying, "were red and white, there were few, but they were also white" - and decided that she would not go home. She headed to Rossio to see "what she had been waiting so long to happen".

It was there that she asked a soldier what they were doing there and if he needed anything.

The soldier, "whose identity I never knew, signalled that he wanted a cigarette" and Celeste, who suffered from lung problems and never smoked, gave him a carnation instead, which the soldier placed on the barrel of his gun and which would end up being the symbol of the revolution.

Fifty years later, Celeste insists on parading down Avenida da Liberdade on Thursday, with a carnation on her chest. But Carolina has doubts: "I don't know if her health will allow it and, for that, we would need to get a wheelchair, which no one has yet arranged for us, because in all these years no one has done anything for my grandmother", she lamented.

Added to her grandmother's enthusiasm for the revolution is her granddaughter's revolt today because "no organisation has ever given her the recognition she deserves, because no one has ever wanted to know what she went through in life".

The "Celeste dos Cravos" was also the Celeste who in 1988 "lost everything in the Chiado fire, was left homeless, without photographs, without the memories of a lifetime", who was forced to move to a house where "for over a year she has been unable to enter because the landlord changed the lock on the building because he wanted to increase the rent", and who 25 years ago had her story linked once again to April 25.

"In the commemorations of the 25th anniversary, everyone called her for interviews, she went from one radio station to another, from one television station to another, by metro, because no one ever came to transport her. She was extremely tired and soon after she had a stroke", said Carolina, regretting that "on April 26, no one wanted to know about Celeste anymore".

With serious vision, hearing and mobility problems, Celeste now lives in her daughter's and granddaughter's house, in Alcobaça (Leiria district), "with a pension that does not allow her to buy a hearing aid that she needs, or a wheelchair". But, added her granddaughter, "on Thursday, when she turns on the television, everyone will be wearing a carnation on their chest, in the parades and in the Assembly of the Republic".

If her health allows it on that day, as far as Carolina is concerned, Celeste will also celebrate the revolution with a carnation on her chest. But what remains in her granddaughter's chest is the revolt over the "feeling of ingratitude of a country that gives so many decorations, makes so many public recognitions by the Government and the Presidency", and where "there has been no organisation capable of paying homage to Celeste dos Cravos while she is alive".

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