Voces del Prado

The 1960’s: Day-to-Day Life in the Halls

Francisco Manso Guerrero, Gallery attendant and Clerical Support, 1966-1991

Every day, when we arrived in the morning, we would sign a list located at the staff entrance, and we all had to sign it. We signed and then went into the dressing-room. We had a dressing-room where we put on our uniforms. And we worked until 2 o’clock. In those days the Museum opened at ten in the morning, and at two o’clock someone else would come to take over from us. We filled in a slip of paper when we went into the halls. Every month a draw was held to allocate the halls and each month we were assigned our hall, and you were responsible for that hall. You had a cleaning rag or a floor-cloth, and a duster. The caretaker would come around and check if there was any dust, because everyone had a duster in their hall. Of course, you had to dust very carefully. They told us, “don’t even touch the canvas”, because that was what the Art Handler team was there for, because they had a special large-sized duster which they would pass over with care every now and then. They were specialised. When you entered the hall in the morning you had to go round with the small duster, check the pictures, and when your replacement came at two o’clock we had a small piece of paper we had to fill in to say whether something had happened or something was out of the normal. If nothing had happened, you’d write “nothing new”. Then you handed the piece of paper to the caretaker when you left. And that was our job.