Tony Carreira: The Life Story Behind Portugal's Beloved Singer

Tony Carreira sings about love the way ordinary people talk about it. His songs are not clever puzzles, and they are not trying to be fashionable. They are about missing someone, about wanting someone back, about the pain of a goodbye, and about the hope that love will return. Millions of people in Portugal have heard their own feelings in those songs, and that is why he became one of the most loved singers in the country. He did not become famous in one night. He became famous slowly, by singing in small places, by working hard in another country, and by never giving up on the dream he had as a boy in a small village.

He was born on 30 December 1963 in Armadouro, a small place in Pampilhosa da Serra, in the centre of Portugal. It was a quiet, rural world, far from the bright lights of Lisbon. Like many Portuguese families of that time, his family knew what it meant to leave home to find work. When Tony was still young, the family moved to France, to Paris, where his parents worked and where he grew up among other Portuguese emigrants. Paris gave him a new life, but it also gave him a feeling that would stay with him: the feeling of being far from home, and of missing the country he had left behind. That feeling of longing, of saudade, is at the heart of his music.

His career began in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, and it grew step by step. His first records were modest, but his voice was warm and direct, and people liked the honesty in it. Then came the big songs, the ones that filled concert halls and that were played at weddings, on the radio, and in cars all over Portugal. Songs like Ai Destino, Depois de Ti, and Sonhos de Menino became part of everyday life. He also became a father whose children followed him into music, and he later faced the hardest thing a parent can face, the loss of his daughter Sara in a road accident in 2020. His story is one of love, of family, of emigration, and of a voice that Portugal came to trust.

A Small Village and a Move to Paris

António Manuel Mateus Antunes, known to the world as Tony Carreira, was born on 30 December 1963 in Armadouro, in the parish of Pampilhosa da Serra. It was a small, rural place, where life moved slowly and where everyone knew everyone else. The Portugal of the 1960s was a poor country, and many families had to make a hard choice: stay and struggle, or leave and look for work in another country. The Carreira family made the choice that thousands of Portuguese families made. They left for France, and Tony spent much of his childhood and youth in Paris, growing up in the world of Portuguese emigrants.

Life in Paris was not easy. His parents worked hard, and the family lived in a foreign city where the language, the streets, and the customs were different. But Paris also gave Tony something important: it gave him music. He heard French songs, he heard Portuguese songs played by emigrants who missed home, and he began to dream of singing himself. The emigrant community kept Portuguese music alive in Paris, at parties, in cafés, and at gatherings, and a young boy listening to those songs learned that music could carry a person back home, even when home was far away. That lesson stayed with him.

As a teenager, Tony began to take music seriously. He sang where he could, he learned how to hold a microphone and how to reach an audience, and he began to believe that singing could be more than a hobby. He was not a boy from a rich family with connections in the music business. He was the son of emigrants, and he had to work for every chance he got. That background gave him a toughness and a patience that would serve him well. He knew how to wait, how to keep going when nothing seemed to happen, and how to be grateful for small chances.

The years in Paris also shaped his sense of who he was. He was Portuguese, but he had grown up in France. He knew what it meant to live between two countries, to love one and to live in the other. Many of his later songs are about that feeling, about distance and return, about a heart that is in two places at once. He did not learn that feeling from a book. He lived it, as a boy in Paris who missed the village he had left behind, and as a man who would later sing for emigrants all over the world who felt the same way.

First Songs and the Long Road to Fame

Tony Carreira’s first steps in music were slow and modest. He began recording in the late 1980s, and his early records did not make him a star overnight. He sang romantic songs, the kind of music that Portuguese audiences have always loved, and he built his name one concert at a time. He played in small halls, at local festivals, and for Portuguese communities abroad, and he learned his trade in front of real audiences. A singer who learns in front of a live crowd learns fast, because the crowd tells the truth. If a song works, they sing along. If it does not, they go quiet. Tony learned to listen to that truth.

His first album came in the early 1990s, and it began to win him attention. His voice was one of his greatest strengths. It was warm, clear, and full of feeling, and it suited the romantic songs he sang. He did not try to be a rock star or a fashion icon. He was a singer of love songs, and he sang them as if he meant every word. That sincerity was what people noticed. In a world full of singers who seemed to be acting, Tony seemed to be telling the truth, and audiences trusted him for it.

The breakthrough came as the 1990s went on and his songs began to reach a wider audience. Radio stations played him, television invited him, and his concerts began to grow. He became a familiar name in Portugal, and his records began to sell in large numbers. It was not a sudden explosion of fame. It was a steady rise, built on good songs, hard work, and a voice that people wanted to hear again. That kind of rise is slower, but it is also stronger, because it is built on real listeners rather than on a single moment of hype.

During these years, Tony also became a family man. He married, and he had children, and his family became a central part of his life. His children would later follow him into music, and his home life gave him a stability that many singers never find. He was not only building a career. He was building a life, and the two things grew together. The songs about love and family that he sang were not only words to him. They were the story of his own life, and the audience could feel that.

Ai Destino and the Songs Everyone Knows

The songs that made Tony Carreira a household name are the ones that Portuguese people still sing today. Ai Destino is one of the best known, a song about fate and love that captures the feeling of a heart that cannot control what happens to it. Depois de Ti is another, a song about life after a love has gone, and Sonhos de Menino is a song about the dreams of a boy, a song that many listeners hear as the story of Tony’s own childhood. These songs are simple in their words, but they are strong in their feeling, and that is why they have lasted.

What makes these songs work is that they say things that many people feel but cannot say themselves. A person who has lost a love does not always have the words to explain the pain. Tony gives them the words. A person who misses home does not always know how to say it. Tony sings it for them. That is the job of a popular singer, and Tony does it better than almost anyone in Portugal. His songs are not for critics. They are for ordinary people, and ordinary people have taken them into their lives, playing them at weddings, at parties, and in quiet moments alone.

His albums in the 1990s and 2000s sold in very large numbers in Portugal, and he became one of the best-selling Portuguese singers of his generation. He filled big concert halls, including the largest venues in Lisbon and Porto, and he played for Portuguese emigrant communities in France, Switzerland, and other countries. For those emigrants, a Tony Carreira concert was more than a show. It was a night when they could hear their own language, feel close to home, and sing along with thousands of other people who understood exactly what they felt. He became a singer for the Portuguese everywhere, not only for the Portuguese at home.

The success also brought him awards and recognition, but the truest sign of his fame is simpler: his songs are known by people who do not follow music at all. A taxi driver, a shopkeeper, a grandmother, a teenager, all of them know the words to his biggest hits. That is a kind of fame that cannot be bought. It comes only when a singer’s songs become part of a country’s everyday life, and Tony’s songs did exactly that. They became the soundtrack to love, to loss, and to homecoming for a whole generation.

A Family of Singers and a Life in the Public Eye

Tony Carreira’s family is a big part of his story, because his children grew up in music and followed him onto the stage. His son David Carreira became a singer and actor in his own right, and his son Mickael Carreira also became a singer. His daughter Sara Carreira was also a singer, and she was building her own career when tragedy struck. The family became well known in Portugal, not only because of Tony’s fame, but because the children were talented in their own way, and because the public loved to see a family that shared music.

Being a famous family brings joy, but it also brings pressure. Everything the family does is watched, and every success and every problem becomes public. Tony handled this by keeping his family close and by supporting his children’s careers without trying to control them. He was proud of them, and he often shared the stage with them, singing together at concerts that the audience loved. Those moments, a father singing with his children, are among the most moving in his career, because they show a family bound together by music and by love.

His public life also made him a familiar figure on Portuguese television. He appeared on talk shows, on music programmes, and at big national events, and he became a singer that people felt they knew. He is not a distant star. He is a man who talks plainly, who smiles easily, and who seems comfortable with ordinary people. That ease is part of his appeal. Fans feel that they could talk to him, and that feeling is rare for a singer of his fame. He has kept that connection alive for decades, and it is one of the reasons his audience has stayed loyal.

The family story also shows the other side of fame. When a family is in the public eye, its private joys and its private sorrows are shared with the whole country. Tony’s family has lived through both, and the public has watched with affection and with sympathy. That shared feeling, between a singer and the people who listen to him, is the heart of his career. He is not only a voice on a record. He is a man whose life has unfolded in front of his audience, and whose songs have grown with that life.

The Loss of Sara and a Nation’s Sympathy

On 5 December 2020, Tony Carreira’s daughter Sara died in a road accident, and the news shocked Portugal. She was only twenty-one years old, and she was at the start of a promising singing career. The loss was not only a private grief for her family. It became a national moment of sadness, because so many people felt they knew Sara, had heard her sing, and had watched her grow up in the public eye. Tributes came from across the country, from other singers, from fans, and from people who had never met her but felt the loss as if it were their own.

For Tony, the loss was the hardest thing a parent can face. He stepped back from public life, and for a long time he did not sing. The silence was understood by everyone. A father who has lost a daughter does not need to explain why he cannot sing. The whole country waited, and it waited with patience and with love. When he did begin to return to the stage, it was slowly, and the concerts had a different feeling. The audience was not only there to hear songs. They were there to stand with a father who had suffered, and to show him that he was not alone.

Sara’s memory has stayed alive in the family’s work and in the hearts of her fans. Her songs are still listened to, and her name is still spoken with affection. Tony has spoken about her with love, and he has kept her memory close in his public life. There is no easy way to write about a loss like this, and there is no lesson that makes it better. What can be said is that the family’s courage in facing it, and the public’s kindness in response, showed something good about Portugal: that a singer and his audience can share grief as well as joy, and that music can hold both.

The years since Sara’s death have been a time of slow healing for Tony and his family. He has returned to performing, and his concerts now carry a deeper feeling, because the audience knows what he has been through. When he sings about love and loss now, the words have a weight that they did not have before, and the audience listens in a different way. That is not a happy ending. It is a human one, and it is the truest part of his recent story. A man who has lost a child and still finds a way to sing is a man of great strength, and his audience knows it.

Still Singing for Portugal and the World

In the years after his return to the stage, Tony Carreira has continued to sing for the audiences who have loved him for decades. His concerts still fill big halls, and his songs are still played on the radio and at family gatherings. He has also continued to record, and his newer work sits beside the old hits in his concerts, so that a night with Tony Carreira is a journey through a whole lifetime of songs. The audience sings the old words, and they listen to the new ones, and the two mix together in a way that feels natural.

He remains a singer for Portuguese emigrants as well as for the Portuguese at home. His concerts abroad are still important events for communities who live far from Portugal, and for many of them, his voice is a link to the country they left. That role, as a singer who carries home with him, is one he has held since his own childhood in Paris, and it has only grown stronger with time. He understands the emigrant’s heart because he was once an emigrant child himself, and that understanding is in every song he sings about distance and return.

Tony’s place in Portuguese music is secure. He is one of the best-selling and most loved singers in the country’s history, and his songs are part of the shared memory of a generation. He is not a singer who chased fashion or who tried to be someone else. He is a singer who found his voice, a warm voice singing plain words about love, and who stayed true to it for more than thirty years. That staying power is his legacy, and it is a legacy that will outlast any single record or concert.

His story is still going on. He sings, he records, and he stands on stages in front of people who have loved his voice for most of their lives. The boy from a small village in Pampilhosa da Serra who grew up in Paris has become a voice that Portugal carries with it wherever its people go. That is a long journey, and it is a journey that began with a simple dream: to sing, and to be heard. Tony Carreira was heard, and Portugal has never stopped listening.

Songs for the Emigrants Who Miss Home

Tony Carreira’s music has always had a special meaning for Portuguese people who live abroad. Portugal is a country whose people have left in large numbers, to France, to Switzerland, to Luxembourg, to Canada, and to many other places, and those emigrants carry a longing for home that never fully leaves them. Tony understands that longing because he lived it himself as a boy in Paris, and his songs speak to it directly. When he sings about distance, about return, and about a love that waits across the sea, he is singing the emigrant’s story, and emigrants hear their own lives in his words.

His concerts abroad are among the most emotional of his career. In a hall in Paris or in Geneva, thousands of Portuguese people gather, many of them far from home for years, and they sing along to songs they first heard as children. For one night, the hall feels like Portugal. The language, the music, and the shared memories bring the audience together, and Tony is the man who makes that happen. He is not only a singer on those nights. He is a link to home, a voice that carries the country to people who miss it, and that role is one he has held with great care.

The emigrant audience also shaped his music in a practical way. He learned which songs made people cry, which ones made them sing, and which ones made them feel close to home, and he built his concerts around those songs. A singer who plays for emigrants learns quickly what matters, because the audience is honest. If a song does not touch them, they go quiet. If it does, they sing it back to him, loudly and together. Tony’s concerts abroad are full of that singing, and it is one of the most moving sights in Portuguese music: a hall full of people, far from home, singing in their own language, together.

This part of his career is also a reminder of how music travels with people. When Portuguese families left for France in the 1960s and 1970s, they took their music with them, in records, in cassettes, and in memory. Tony was one of the children of that migration, and he became one of the voices that kept the music alive abroad. His songs are now part of the emigrant story, sung in kitchens in Paris, in cars in Switzerland, and at parties in Luxembourg. That is a legacy that goes beyond record sales, because it is a legacy of belonging, of a voice that keeps a scattered people together.

Records, Awards, and a Place in Portuguese Music

Over a career of more than thirty years, Tony Carreira has become one of the best-selling Portuguese singers of all time. His albums have sold in very large numbers in Portugal, and several of them have reached the top of the charts. He has received awards for his sales and for his contribution to Portuguese music, and he has been honoured by the industry that he helped to shape. But the numbers, impressive as they are, do not tell the whole story. The truest measure of his success is simpler: his songs are known by people who do not follow music, and they are sung at the most important moments of Portuguese life, at weddings, at birthdays, and at family gatherings.

His place in Portuguese music is secure because his songs are part of the country’s shared memory. A generation of Portuguese people grew up hearing his voice on the radio, in the car, and at home, and they associate his songs with their own lives: with first loves, with weddings, with goodbyes, and with homecomings. That kind of association cannot be bought or manufactured. It comes only when a singer’s songs are honest, when they are sung with feeling, and when they stay with people over many years. Tony’s songs have done that, and they will continue to do it.

He has also influenced other Portuguese singers, especially romantic singers who came after him. They look at his career and see that it is possible to build a long and successful life in music by singing plain songs about love, in Portuguese, for ordinary people. They see that a singer does not need to chase fashion, and does not need to sing in English to be successful. He needs a good voice, good songs, and the patience to build an audience over time. Tony’s career is proof of that, and it is a lesson that younger singers still learn from today.

In the end, his place in Portuguese music is not only about sales or awards. It is about the feeling that his songs give people. When a Portuguese person hears Ai Destino, they feel something, and that feeling is the same whether they are in Lisbon, in Paris, or in any other city where Portuguese people live. That feeling is Tony Carreira’s gift, and it is why his music will be remembered long after the charts have forgotten him. He gave Portugal songs for its loves, its losses, and its longings, and Portugal has kept them close to its heart.

My Take:

When I think about Tony Carreira, I think about a voice that sounds like home. I do not mean home as a place on a map. I mean home as a feeling, the feeling you get when you hear a song and you suddenly remember who you are and where you come from. Tony’s voice does that for millions of Portuguese people, and I think that is a rare and beautiful gift. There are singers with bigger voices and singers with more fashionable songs, but there are not many singers who can make a whole room of strangers feel as if they are sitting together in one family’s kitchen, listening to a song about love. Tony can do that, and he has done it for more than thirty years.

I admire the way he became famous slowly. In a world where everyone wants to be famous in one night, Tony took the long road. He sang in small halls, he played for emigrants in foreign cities, he made records that sold a little at first and then a little more, and he built his audience one listener at a time. That kind of fame is stronger than quick fame, because it is built on real people who chose to listen again. I think young singers today could learn from that. You do not need to be a star tomorrow. You need to be a singer who is still singing in ten years, and in twenty years, and Tony is proof that the slow road can lead to a very big place.

What I like most about his songs is that they are honest about love. Love in Tony’s songs is not perfect. It hurts, it fails, it leaves, and it comes back. Ai Destino is a song about fate, about the feeling that love is not fully in our hands. Depois de Ti is a song about what is left when love has gone. Sonhos de Menino is a song about the dreams we had as children, and about how life changes those dreams. These are not songs that pretend love is easy. They are songs that say love is hard, and that it is worth singing about anyway. I think that honesty is why people trust him. He does not lie to them about love. He tells them the truth they already know, and he puts it into words they can sing.

I think about his childhood in Paris, and I think it explains so much about his music. A boy who grows up far from home learns what longing feels like before he learns what fame feels like. He learns that home is not only a place, it is a sound, a language, a song. When Tony sings about missing someone, he is not acting. He is remembering what it felt like to be a Portuguese boy in Paris, listening to songs from home and wishing he were there. That memory is in his voice, and it is why his songs about distance feel so true. He has lived the feeling he sings about, and the audience can hear that.

I also think about his family, and about how music runs through it. A father who sings, children who sing, a family that shares a stage together, that is a beautiful thing. It is also a hard thing, because when a family is famous, its private life becomes public. Tony’s family has lived with that pressure, and they have done it with dignity. I admire the way he supported his children’s careers without pushing them into his shadow. He let them be themselves, and he was proud of them for it. That is what a good father does, and it is what a good musician does too: he makes room for other voices.

The loss of Sara is the part of his story that I find hardest to write about, and I think it should be hard. A father losing a daughter of twenty-one is a pain that no words can fix, and I do not want to pretend that music or fame or time can fix it. What I can say is that I admire the way Tony faced it. He did not hide. He did not pretend. He stepped back, he grieved, and when he came back to the stage, he came back as a man who had suffered and who was still standing. That takes a strength that is hard to describe. When he sings now, I think the audience hears that strength, and they stand with him, not only as fans, but as people who have also known loss.

I think about the concerts after his return, and about what it must feel like to sing a love song after losing a child. It must feel different. The words about love and loss are no longer only words. They are memories. And yet he sings them, and the audience sings with him, and for a few minutes, the grief and the music are in the same room, and neither one wins. That is what music is for, I think. It does not take the pain away. It gives the pain a place to sit, and it gives the singer and the listener a way to carry it together. Tony’s concerts now do that, and I think that is a brave and generous thing to offer.

I also think about the emigrants who listen to him, because they are a big part of his story. Portuguese people live all over the world, in France, in Switzerland, in Canada, in many other countries, and for many of them, Tony’s voice is the sound of home. When they hear him sing, they are not only hearing a song. They are hearing their own language, their own memories, and their own longing. Tony understands that because he was once one of them. He was a boy in Paris who missed Portugal, and now he is a man who sings for boys and girls in Paris who miss Portugal. That circle, from emigrant child to singer for emigrants, is one of the most moving parts of his life.

If I have a criticism, it is not really a criticism of Tony himself. It is a sadness that his music is not better known outside the Portuguese-speaking world. His songs are about feelings that everyone understands, love, loss, home, and longing, but they are sung in Portuguese, and many people outside Portugal never hear them. I think that is a loss for those listeners, not for Tony. He chose to sing for his own people, in his own language, and he did it so well that his own people will never forget him. A singer who is loved that deeply at home has done his job, even if the rest of the world never learns his name.

I think about the way he performs, and about how simple it is. He does not need a big show. He stands on a stage, he sings, and the audience sings with him. That simplicity is a strength, because it leaves nothing between the singer and the song. When the audience sings along to Ai Destino, they are not watching a star. They are singing their own story, and Tony is leading them. That is a special kind of performance, and it is why his concerts feel less like shows and more like gatherings. People come together, they sing, and they remember.

I also think about the years ahead for him, and about what his legacy will be. I think his legacy will not be a prize or a record sale. It will be the songs themselves, living in the mouths of people who sing them at weddings, in cars, and in kitchens. A song that is sung by ordinary people is a song that is alive, and Tony’s songs are alive in that way. Long after the concerts end, the songs will go on being sung, and that is the best kind of fame. It is a fame that does not depend on being seen. It depends on being remembered, and Tony will be remembered.

One more thought stays with me, and it is about the word saudade, the Portuguese word for a longing that has no simple translation. Tony’s whole career is a lesson in saudade. He sings about missing people, missing places, and missing times that will not come back. He does not try to fix that longing. He gives it a voice, and he lets the audience feel it together. I think that is why his music matters so much in Portugal, a country whose history is full of leaving and returning. He is not only a singer of love songs. He is a singer of the Portuguese heart, and the Portuguese heart has always known how to long for home.

In the end, I think Tony Carreira teaches us that a career built on honesty lasts longer than a career built on fashion. He sang plain songs about love, he sang them in his own language, he stayed close to his family, and he kept singing even after the worst loss a father can suffer. That is a life of courage, and it is a life of love. I would tell a young listener to start with Ai Destino, then to listen to Sonhos de Menino, and then to hear the songs his children sang with him. Listen to the voice, and listen to the words, and you will hear a man who has lived every song he sings. That is why Portugal loves him, and why it will keep loving him for a long time.

I think about his voice, and about how it sounds like a warm room on a cold night. It is not a voice that shows off. It is a voice that welcomes you, that tells you a story, and that makes you feel less alone. When I hear Tony sing about love, I do not hear a star performing. I hear a man who has loved, who has lost, and who has kept going. That honesty is rare, and it is why his voice has lasted. A voice that is honest does not age in the same way as a voice that is only fashionable. It stays, because honesty is always in fashion, even when the charts change.

I also think about the village where he was born, Armadouro, a small place in the hills of central Portugal, and about how far he travelled from it. From a small village to Paris, from Paris to the great halls of Lisbon, from Lisbon to the world, that is a long journey, and it began with a boy who dreamed of singing. I think about that journey, and I feel glad for him, because it shows that a dream born in a small place can grow into something large. You do not need to be born in a big city to become a star. You need a voice, a dream, and the patience to keep singing until someone listens. Tony had all three.

I think about the nights when he sang with his children, a father and his sons and daughter sharing a stage, and about how beautiful those nights must have been. Music is often a solitary thing, but in Tony’s family, it was a shared thing, a bond between a father and his children. Those concerts, with the family singing together, are among the most moving moments in Portuguese music, because they show a family that loves each other and that loves to sing. That love is in the music, and the audience can feel it, and it makes the songs even more meaningful.

I think about the word saudade again, and about how Tony’s whole career is a lesson in it. Saudade is the longing for a person, a place, or a time that is far away, and it is a feeling that every Portuguese person knows. Tony sings saudade better than almost anyone, because he has lived it, as a boy in Paris, as a singer for emigrants, and as a father who has lost a daughter. His songs give saudade a voice, and they let people feel it together, instead of feeling it alone. That is a gift, and it is one that Portugal will always need.

I also think about the future, and about what will happen to his songs when he stops singing. I think they will go on being sung, at weddings, in cars, and in kitchens, because they are songs that belong to people’s lives, not only to a singer’s career. A song that is sung by ordinary people is a song that is alive, and Tony’s songs are alive in that way. Long after the concerts end, the songs will go on, and that is the best kind of fame. It is a fame that does not depend on being seen. It depends on being remembered, and Tony will be remembered.

One more thought stays with me, and it is about the simple act of singing a love song well. It sounds easy, but it is not. A love song sung badly is boring. A love song sung well can make a whole room cry. Tony sings love songs well, and he has done it for more than thirty years. That is a craft, and it is a craft worth respecting. He has spent his life learning how to sing about love, and he has learned it so well that his songs have become the way Portugal talks about love. That is a remarkable achievement, and it is one that I will always admire.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where was Tony Carreira born and where did he grow up?

Tony Carreira was born on 30 December 1963 in Armadouro, in Pampilhosa da Serra in central Portugal, and he spent much of his childhood and youth in Paris, where his family had moved for work. Growing up among Portuguese emigrants in France shaped his music and his songs about longing for home.

What is Tony Carreira’s most famous song?

Ai Destino is one of his best-known songs, along with Depois de Ti and Sonhos de Menino. These romantic songs about love, fate, and childhood dreams became part of everyday life in Portugal and are still sung at concerts, weddings, and family gatherings.

Did Tony Carreira’s children become singers too?

Yes, his sons David Carreira and Mickael Carreira both became singers, and his daughter Sara Carreira was also a singer. The family often shared the stage, and Tony was proud to support his children’s own careers in music.

What happened to Tony Carreira’s daughter Sara?

Sara Carreira died in a road accident on 5 December 2020, at the age of twenty-one. Her death was a national moment of sadness in Portugal, and Tony stepped back from public life for a time before slowly returning to the stage.

Why do Portuguese emigrants love Tony Carreira’s music?

His songs about love, distance, and longing speak directly to the emigrant experience, and he understands it from his own childhood in Paris. His concerts abroad are important gatherings for Portuguese communities who live far from home.

Is Tony Carreira still performing today?

Yes, he has continued to record and to perform, and his concerts still fill large halls in Portugal and abroad. His older songs remain popular, and his newer work sits beside them in a career that has lasted for more than thirty years.