The last Christmas of the “toy hospital” in Madrid

White coat and screwdriver as a scalpel, Antonio Martínez Rivas examines a remote-controlled car in his “toy hospital” in Madrid, a one-of-a-kind workshop that will close its doors after half a century of repairs.

With a focused gaze behind his glasses, this passionate 70-year-old “doctor”, who will retire on December 31st, is busy on his operating table a few days before last Christmas in his laboratory.

“Now it’s me they’re going to fix,” this mustachioed, husky-voiced man says to a customer, in an allusion to the third cancer he’s battling.

Illuminated in pale neon and surrounded by tools and spare parts, his operating table forms the corner of a veritable Ali Baba’s cave where thousands of colorful toys overflow from shelves to the ceiling.

Dolls, board games, soft toys, wooden horses sent by Spanish customers but also from France, the United Kingdom, Portugal and even Uruguay: his laboratory is also a time machine from the beginning of the last century.

“We were the only ones to dedicate ourselves (to the restoration) of any type of toy” in Spain, says this Madrilenian, who learned a trade with his father “that we don’t teach in any academy”.

– “The spirit of the toy” –

The clients “who come the most are adults who are nostalgic for what they had as children,” observes Antonio Martínez Rivas.

“Some tell me + don’t change it, if you put in a new padding find the same one because it’s the spirit of the toy +” when “the others talk to their doll”, he observes seriously, before being interrupted by a customer.

David Hinojal, 40, came to pick up a stuffed monkey that screams when pressed to its stomach.

“It’s a gift that I brought back to my mother-in-law”, from a trip to Mexico, “and to which we are very attached”, confides, with a smile, this employee of the tourism sector.

The curious sometimes cross Spain to see Antonio’s studio, like Julia Fernandez, who came from Barcelona with her husband.

“We heard that the toy hospital was about to close” and “we thought it was very interesting to visit,” he explains.

“It’s an art and you leave with nostalgia” from her shop, marvels this 60-year-old teacher who saw in the workshop a small slide projector and a papier-mâché horse similar to those of her childhood. .

– Recycling and video games –

“It’s a shame it’s closing (…) because it’s a way to recycle toys, not to consume more of them,” says David Hinojal.

“We have to give the toy a value” because “if we continue like this, waste will overwhelm us”, adds Antonio Martínez Rivas, who puts an end to a family adventure with this closure.

His father had opened a small artisan toy factory in 1945 before gradually converting to repairs in the face of the massive arrival of plastic toys in the 1950s and 1960s, which he was unable to produce.

“When I came back from university, around the age of 12-13, I finished my homework and sat down with (my father) at the work table, to learn” a trade made up of bricolage, arts and crafts, watchmaking, mechanics or electricity, he recalls .

Antonio, who took over from his father in the 1970s and has no employees, for his part had to cope with the arrival of video games, which led to a decline in interest in traditional toys. “Now they’re all with tablets, mobile phones or consoles,” he regrets.

None of his three sons wanted to take over the business and the few apprentices who had worked in the shop understood “that it doesn’t pay”, he complains, referring to a paltry salary of “8-10 euros of time”.

«After so many years of work you are left with only emotions and sadness, because there are so many customers who are no longer just customers but friends», he says with his head bowed.

As a tribute, his friends, who voluntarily help him, have posted a sign behind the counter: here, “we sell (almost) everything” except “the chef”.

© Afp