Daniel Mato Jara comes from the third generation of artisan watchmakers and does not rule out that his daughter is part of the fourth because she has had a good teacher, although he does not say that.
A native of Santander, Daniel has been in the business for 36 years and has lived in Los Realejos for eleven years. He teaches schools to tell the time, to understand the heritage and the importance of what was once believed to be the time machine, and concentration techniques used by watchmakers so that students can apply them in their studies. Order and cleanliness on a table help to concentrate and tackle a difficult job that is similar to that of an artisan watchmaker, which is very meticulous, requires a lot of concentration and is in danger of disappearing due to the lack of support from institutions that do not recognize it. .
Teachings that he imparts as a member and president of the Canary Islands Public Clocks Defense Association (Adrecos), the only association of this type that exists in the Archipelago whose objective is to publicize, defend and repair these patrimonial elements, many of which are They are abandoned and forgotten.
In Spain, the traditional watchmaking trade is not classified as professional training, that is, it cannot even be taught because there is no qualification to be able to do it, for example, in workshop schools, to guarantee generational change and thus avoid lose completely.
Daniel was invited in 2006 to visit the Puerta del Sol clock, an opportunity he took advantage of to speak with Jesús López Terradas, the person in charge of its maintenance since 1997, about restoration techniques and issues related to the trade. “It is one of the best pieces in Europe, donated by the watchmaker José Rodríguez Conejero -better known as José Losada because of the Leonese place of his birth- who was the one who finished the Big Ben project in London because the person who won the contest and designed it, Edward John Dent, died six years before inaugurating it”, he comments.
Daniel has restored some of the most complex machines on the Island, of which he knows their details and their history perfectly. Among them, the clock on the tower of the Santísima Matriz Iglesia de San Marcos in Icod de Los Vinos, made of English machinery from 1870, from the famous clock house John Moore & sons, a machine with two operating bodies and whose peculiarity is to function in the counterclockwise direction.
“It was a real feat, we almost lost our lives in it. Not for restoring this piece of historical heritage dating from 1869 but for convincing that it had to be done”, he points out.
“The Association that he presides over took five years to gain access to the clock. The repair was completed but it is still abandoned, despite the fact that we have planned a museum tower and a cultural program with a subsidy of 10,000 euros that finally had to be returned to the Ministry of Technological Innovation because we were not allowed access to anything, ”he confirms.
The last one with which he dared was that of the church of La Montaña, in Los Realejos, where all the old elements were recovered. “When we restore, we never replace, we recover, and in this case we went one step further, which was to use technology and make the first weather station with the clock face lighting, depending on the temperature, the season, whether it is going to rain or it is cloudy. It is something very new and a guiding tool for the residents of the entire North of the Island”, he explains.
It took five months to restore it but in the end the system was not put into operation “because the Bishopric of Tenerife was not convinced by the colors,” he says. Meanwhile, the residents of this neighborhood keep asking him: “When does the clock change color?”
A unique heritage in the Canary Islands
According to Mato, “The Canary Islands have a unique heritage of handcrafted clocks in the world that could be at the same level as Big Ben or the Puerta del Sol. Adrecos Canarias has more than one hundred cataloged but ensures that they are not opened up or the doors to finish doing it completely. Each one of them has a story behind it that must be known and disclosed.
“What makes them unique are the people who built them, such as the one in the Cathedral of La Laguna, made by John Ellicott, personal watchmaker of King George III of England, which was brought in 1714 by the Cabildo for the church of La Concepción. of the same municipality, and ended up in the Cathedral to the chagrin of many neighbors. This character invented the escape wheel, the cylinder wheel and the pendulum for compensation of the time of the machines, of which we now know the tic-tac. Mechanical clocks were a train of wheels, which worked very fast or very slowly and there was no exact control to regulate time and he invented that pendulum to make them exact. This is a peculiarity of this watch, which is in a limit situation and we have not been able to restore it even at the Association’s own expense”, he laments.
Another example he cites is the clock of the Casa Cuna de Taco, of the Casa de Viuda de Perea, the same one that manufactured the one for the Cabildo de Tenerife, which plays to the rhythm of tajaraste every 15 minutes, a unique piece that was built for the building in 1953. In his opinion, the latter “has the best bell tower in all of Europe, eight bells that take your breath away and it is not known anywhere and does not sound like it should,” he says.
Daniel is determined to maintain a job that he is passionate about and that is also linked to the history and culture of the peoples because watches are part of the collective heritage.
In the past they were placed in the churches -where most of them remain- not because they were the exclusive property of the institution but because they were bought by the neighbors, donated to the city councils and the mayors were the ones who negotiated with the clergy their placement in the most high and in the center of town, which always ended up being the church, so that it could be seen by all. And they were allowed to place with two conditions: that it became the property of the institution to guarantee the future, and that it be maintained by the city councils for life, a requirement that is not currently met.
In his opinion, the reason why it is not done “is ignorance”, since its cost is not high. Moreover, he adds that with a good cultural program they can support themselves because there are media such as the Internet or virtual reality that contribute to making their visit attractive.
“We have a group of students who have never known the sound of a bell in their lives and when we take them to a bell tower and show them the clock, the rattle, the bells, the way they were rung at the time, we give them to understand that the clock tower was the means of communication in those days and it is a great attraction, a way of teaching children part of the history and, indirectly, the trade”, he maintains.
Daniel still has a lot of rope and is not resigned to the disappearance of traditional watchmakers. His last action to prevent it was in mid-December, when, on behalf of the Association, he went to knock on the doors of the Deputy of the Common, Rafael Yanes, “who promised him that he would see to it that the mixed Council Council-Bishopric commission cataloged and declare the clocks BIC, restore them, make a proposal for cultural promotion immediately and then articulate a series of demands so that the municipalities comply with their obligation to maintain them”.
Since then, time for artisan watches and watchmakers has begun to run.
