If you’re walking through Leeds city centre this bank holiday weekend, you may very well have been nipped by kid-friendly dinosaur Richie the Raptor.
Of course, he’s not a real dinosaur – no matter how many children and shoppers gleefully scream or break out into bursts of tears in Briggate as Richie nips them. Richie is a hand puppet, joyously being brought to life by former wrestler Gil Elkin.
Gil, 36, loves his job but he got there after multiple tragedies, heartache and tears. Six years ago, Gil was a successful wrestler based in Blackpool but that radically changed after suffering family losses which stopped him pursuing his "passion".
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He went by the pseudonym Axl Rage, named after his greatest idol Guns N’ Roses singer Axl Rose, but like major blows in the ring – two family tragedies hit him in quick succession. His mum and dad died within a year of each other.
Reflecting on his wrestling career and what could have been, Gil said: “As soon as I stopped doing it, the whole thing opened up and some of my friends were doing America.”
But he just wasn’t in the correct mind-frame to continue becoming Axl Rage on a regular basis - the larger than life character who would swoop into the ring and have crowds cheering. He had to hang up his wrestling costume and move on, bidding a tearful farewell to his passion.
Gil said: “I had a family tragedies and I was in between jobs. I was doing a bit of work in a factor and getting made redundant over the course of a year and doing the wrestling, that was the main passion.
“My dad passed away in 2014 and then my mum passed away a year later. So I stopped doing the wrestling and then I got into this.”
He came across the peculiar job online, it was simply listed as ‘Dinosaur Handler’ for Jurassic Earth. As he has a love of performance and a burning curiosity, he just had to find out what this job really entailed.
Gil said: “I found the job on Indeed, I saw the listing said ‘Dinosaur Handler’ and I thought ‘I’m going to have to try that!’ It’s a good company to work for.
“With this, you get to interact and make people’s day so that’s always good.”
“I was doing a few more part time jobs at the time, as this is not a full-time job, and they saw ‘Dinosaur Handler’ on my CV and were asking all about it. So I’d tell them to sit down and I’d have to tell them all about it.”
Gil puppeteers multiple types of dinosaurs as for the dinosaur theatre company Jurassic Earth. The company tours the country with a whole range of puppets. They’ve been based in Briggate over the bank holiday weekend.
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