Voces del Prado

The night watch and taking care of the Museum in the 1960s

Francisco Martín Ortiz, Administrative Technician (copies), 1966-2015

When the Museum opened in the morning, for instance if it opened at ten, that meant we had to be there at seven in the morning to take over from the people on the night shift. The funny thing is that the night guards had to go every fifteen or twenty minutes to the time clock to make sure they didn't doze off while watching over the Museum. These men were doing their rounds outside the Museum, not inside. They were on the watch out in the open, going round and round, and at each door there was a time clock. It was a sort of box with a key, which they had to open to put their ID card in every 15 or 20 minutes. In winter they were out in the cold going round and round … Finally one day the director, I don't remember who, said it was a bit absurd to have all these men guarding the walls of the Museum, that they should be inside, because if there was a problem, for instance a short circuit or something along those lines, they wouldn't know what was going on, because the Museum was locked shut. Every one of the doors you can see were shut, all of them.
The biggest key at the Prado is for the door at the Goya entrance, a huge key, about this big..., maybe I'm exaggerating, it's like this, a huge iron key that weighed a tonne, and that door had to be opened too. All the doors of the Museum, there were quite a few of them, had to be opened. Then the guards too went to the time clock, but that was inside the Museum.
In those days there were three concierges and a main doorman. The four of them lived inside, in the Villanueva building, on one of the sides, in some small homes. That's where they lived. They took care of the Museum in the daytime and at night there was a man in charge of the night watch and he took over from them and was in charge of the Museum at night.
A few years before I came in, it must have been in 64-65, I joined in 66, there was a young man who tried to break into the Museum, a burglar, and the poor man climbed up on a cornice, fell and was killed. He shouted as he fell and the watchmen who were nearby went and found him. He didn't survive. I think it's the only time someone has tried to break in to steal something, so to say.