Island Life Magazine Ltd October/November 2017 | Page 49

R
Interview
The Exotic
World of ‘El
Gringo’
Many people will recall the terrifying ‘snake pit’ scene from Spielberg’s
first Indiana Jones movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, with its thousands of
live, writhing reptiles creating a scene from their worst nightmares.
Graham Ruthven remembers it too – but for him it was a dream of a job,
since he supplied many of the snakes that were used on the set at Elstree
Studios. After a lifetime of breeding and working with exotic creatures
– most recently a 22-year spell living in the jungles of Peru – Graham is
now back on the Island and running a specialist pet store in Ryde.
Jackie McCarrick has been finding out what
led him into such an offbeat career.
Ask Graham about his first job
and you’ll be met with a snort
of wry laughter.
“Jobs? There haven’t been any jobs” he
says, “unless you want to count the one
I had as a Saturday boy at Woolworths
while I was still at school!”
The fact is that Graham managed to turn
a childhood fascination with reptiles into
a somewhat offbeat but lucrative way of
earning his living – and the seeds were
sown right here on the Island when he
was just seven years old.
The only child of Londoner parents, he
was regularly brought to Warners holiday
camps over here in the late 1950s and
early ‘60s.
“When I was seven we were at the
Puckpool camp and I found a slow worm”
he recalls. “I was so fascinated by it that I
kept it in an Oxo tin for the whole of our
two week holiday, and only released it
when we went home”.
Once back home in London’s inner city
area of Elephant and Castle, the young
Graham continued to keep small reptiles
and amphibians as pets, until when he
was 13, his ever-supportive parents gave
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