Years later, I got a joke's cassette. The first chiste-casete in Basque. I was struck by their story, their games and imitations with their thick, deep voice, and their delicious, rich labortans. In these jokes and anecdotes he also offered the direct testimony of a world that was being turned off. I enjoyed and learned a lot in those auditions.

A few years later, when we started working on the Txiskola program, Ugutz found it ideal to preside over the jury: a mature person with a large floor with his elegant white mustache, a skilled joke cuentist, to ensure the presence of the melodies of the Basque Woman from Iparralde. That's how we named Barretzaindia at the head of that one.

It was two wonderful years. We had an unbeatable atmosphere in the team, with beautiful spaces of tertulia, both in the essays and with the guests coming to the program. And the tertulia as the protagonist and “deferent” par excellence, Ugutz! He always had something to tell, and we were amazed at his encyclopedic knowledge and his life and his talent. His verbal fluency and his party of accounts were inexhaustible: when it was not a joke, some anecdote or event around the Basque culture, the affairs of fluctuating family life, the concerns about the Basque, the situation and the future of Euskal Herria... He was also known to be a guest!

Because Ugutz's life wasn't just any. His family and parents, fleeing the war, were well aware of the difficulties and sufferings that had occurred when they had to settle in Iparralde. His father, among others, was a member of the PNV in Madrid and one of the founders and leaders of the ELA union. Ugutz was born in 1939, in Bidart, “on the other side”, although soon after he went to Beskoitz. And though he came back from a young age to Bilbao, he also had to flee to Beskoitz for political reasons.

Ugutz was a beautiful singer. Like most of his family members. The Robles-Aranguiz have left a deep mark on Basque music and were authentic pioneers. He liked the songs that began to sing in the group “Soroak”, which marked the beginning of the new Basque song. Mixel Labegerie has been considered the godfather of the Basque song, but Ugutz said that they had already started offering their performances. In one of them came Mixel Labegerie saying that they opened their eyes and that it was what he wanted to do.

He also told us stories about the nationalists and Vascophiles of that time in Bilbao, stories about the fall of the Basque in Beskoitz, memories of the sister singer Estitxu, news of brother painter Irkhus... Ugutz was an itinerant store of stories that was never emptied.

We were curious that when they called him from Goenkale, they gave him the role of an evil and evil character. It wasn't very comfortable in that role. Something similar happened years later to Pantzo Irigarai. In a humorous sense, he often talked about Iparralde's humorist turning the series into gunmen.

In recent years, I rarely touched him. In most cases, in some act or manifestation related to the Basque Country. And always with a lot of humor and concern, because this country lived, loved and suffered from viscera and viscera. And he liked Euskal Herria so much, he offered songs, humor, theater, militancy, jokes and anecdotes, among others.

Let us continue, on its way, building a Basque Country of Euskaldun and joyful joy.