After the death of his grandfather, a professional scout, Juan Antonio Izagirre, resident of Ermuarra in Durango, for more than three decades, left everything to be recovered: watches, telescopes or portable X-rays, among other varieties of relics, which are recovering with care, dedication, and a lot of piety. Thus he began to participate in the world of watches. Even more so, when Eric Arévalo, a young man from Durangarra with a degree in History, gave a lecture in the town museum about the history of public clocks and watches in Duranguesado. That day, Juan Antonio discovered that the oldest clock in the area was in the church of St. James the Apostle in Ermua’s hometown: an English Penton from 1772. “I’m going to see it there immediately. It was in a deserted corner of the tower. I told Ermua the Council of the City, which I promised to clean up if I were to resign. It was during the pandemic when the clock was lowered with the help of a large crane and to the place I have near the church where I cleaned for two years”, he describes the work he did.
He keeps his grandfather’s legacy very much alive, and John Antony remembers some of his deeds. He studied as a professional spy in Switzerland and later devoted himself to the maintenance of railway watches. “Later, he switched from a steam engine to an electric one and he was the head of the electrical ministry. He was a pioneer in many things. He was the mayor, he brought the first water to Ermua and he was the first to install public light,” he praised.
The moment John Antony saw the battered and dusty clock in the corner of the Ermua church tower, he knew he could not leave it there. The memories and moments she lived with her grandfather weighed heavily and she offered to clean it altruistically. This project is being promoted in the city of Ermua with the invaluable help of a restaurateur. “He would mark the time of the clock of that town, which hardly anyone had at home in those years. He made me see a mess in the corner; This protects the jewel that cannot be robbed.
Hanging about one hundred kilos of the clock pendulum and several parts are missing. With the basic idea that washing is best left alone, Juan Antonio tries to locate some of the pieces lost in time. In this regard, he recently contacted the authors of St. Margaret’s Cathedral in Ipswich (United Kingdom), since he has a clock with similar features, and asked for more detailed information about the restoration work. “I wrote to them and they told me it was not Penton. They are not the typical watches that we know here that go up on a bench and have three bodies; it’s like a desk clock, but done in a big way,” he points out.
“If a clock is missing a pendulum, it’s the same as a car without wheels,” says John Anthony, who has kept in touch with various police organizations to obtain information and find some of the missing parts of the mechanism. One of the most clear ideas that he has is “I want to do a facelift and make it as original as possible, without distorting its historical resources. We encourage all the watchers to give me a hand in restoring it”, Ermuarra throws down the gauntlet.
The process of cleaning and going down is difficult because many hours have been spent on it using paint stripper, sandpaper, metal brush on drills, cold blue and painting. Currently, Juan Antonio Izagirre is polishing the last parts of the restoration and will soon complete the process that began two years ago, with which the clock will see the light of the eighteenth day. “The exhibition of the clock would be where the Vatican Council and the parish meet,” concludes its restorer.
