Voces del Prado

I joined the Museum in May 1966

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

My name is Francisco Martín Ortiz de Zárate, and I joined the Museum on May 20, 1966. Fifty years now at the Prado Museum, I can consider it my second home. I've lived here for so long that it's a bit difficult to retire, after so many years coming to visit the Museum, it's quite complicated at the beginning.
My father's name was Julián Martín Arnanza and he took care of the heating, he's the one who brought me in. In those days, back in 1966, there were five lifts in the Prado and five lift operators. One of them had to leave to do his military service, so there was a vacancy and that's when I came in. They showed me how to operate the lifts. Three of them were controlled using a lever, you had to stop it exactly at the right point, when the lift was level with the floor. I had to go through a bit of a learning curve.
I came in at the age of 15 and was there more or less till I turned 20, when I left to do my military service. When I returned they put me in a room on my own as a guard, no more lifts for me. Then they suggested that I move to the copies office. At the time, aside from arranging things for the copyists, the office was also supposed to organize visits by cultural groups to the Prado. That meant more work and they needed to bring someone else in, so I joined them in 1977 and remain there to date.