Layla Robinson

PRIMEVIL : Skating on life's dark  side - making roller derby mayhem  

Words Jill Nicholas

Pictures/video Stephen Parker

Being mainstream is something Layla Robinson can never be accused of.

She’s slept under bushes, walked with zombies and embraces all things dark and scary.

When her alter ego comes out to play it goes by the name of Primevil.  

When she married it was a double celebration - her nuptials and the pagan festival of Halloween. Her wedding dress was stark black, white contact lenses masked her eyes and blood was splattered across her face. The bridal party were dressed to match.

It figures. It was Layla who founded Rotorua’s controversial Zombie walk and played a key role in the Nightmare at the Museum charity fundraisers.

Heavy metal and rock are her music of choice.

Primevil persona

Primevil is the persona that kicks in on the roller derby track where she’s a coach, joint leader and founding member of the Sulphur City Steam Rollers. She also plays in Rotorua’s Motley Crew team.

To Layla the sinister sounding title she’s given herself makes perfect sense. “It’s Prime because it comes first and evil because I’m always a fan of anything dark and evil.”

It’s the name she wants people to recognise her by as she rolls around the roller derby track.

Her skills on skates led to her inclusion in the Team New Zealand Roller Derby training squad that recently crossed the Tasman to clash with Aussie counterparts from the Victorian Roller Derby League. Its credentials place it as one of the best in the roller derby world.

Roller derby is a tough gig. It’s a contact sport predominately for women and one that takes no prisoners.

The other Layla  

But is Layla Robinson/Primevil as rough and tough as all this might suggest?

Certainly, the woman we meet isn’t. She’s a bubbly, conservatively dressed (in black naturally), immaculately groomed mother of a 10-year-old son and a farmer’s wife from Reporoa.

Her husband Robert is a member of that well known farming dynasty, the Crafars.

To demonstrate what a softie the real-life Layla Robinson is she confesses she’d never make a good, keen woman of the land.

“I’m far too emotional to work on the farm. We have a small number of sheep and all I want to do is give them names and cuddles, much to my father-in-law’s disgust, I’m sure.” 

She didn’t embrace roller derby until she was 33. 

As a teenager she’d been a mad keen roller skater frequenting Skate World in Eruera Street and Blade World in the industrial area.

“I was right into speed skating, crashing into walls and skating the ramps. I wasn’t exceptional but I loved it so much. I’d spend every waking hour when not at school hanging out with the roller blade crew.  I’d always been good at any sport I put my hand to.   

“When those places closed there was nowhere left in Rotorua for us to skate.  I was lost, bored. That’s when I started to get into mischief.”

By then she’d left school, completed an office systems course at Waiariki Polytech and had her first adult job. It was in the menswear department at Farmers. 

Teenage runaway

 She’s brutally candid about her “mischief”.

“I was involved in partying, did a lot of it. I met my first real boyfriend and his group of friends at a party. There were drugs.

“That led me to run away from home with my boyfriend and a mate of his. We were squatting in friends’ houses.

“We slept anywhere we could. For a while there we lived in a cave on Leisure Island at the Mount.”

For six months the threesome roamed around the region sleeping rough, supporting themselves with what they helped themselves to.

“We didn’t have jobs, stole food and took electronics, selling them to second-hand shops.

“We were young and dumb, didn’t realise someone would see a pattern. 

“One day there was a knock on the bushes we were living under.

“It was the police. They took us to the Tokoroa [police] station where they said my mother had a missing person report out on me.

“I was 17, my boyfriend was 16. He was taken to a social welfare boys’ home in Taupo. The people there said I could go and stay with him.

“I was sharing a bed with my boyfriend and getting all the cigarettes we could smoke. They just gave them to us. It didn’t surprise me. They [the welfare home operators] were like that.” 

Her conscience was pricked when she was told her mother “was in bits” worrying about her. She returned to Rotorua.

“My memory of that time is like a jigsaw puzzle with lots of scattered pieces to fit in.”

When her mother went to work in Canada Layla moved into her home in the centre of town.

Alcohol, drugs, mental health

“My boyfriend and I had split up. I was drinking heavily, I didn’t have a solid job until I was 24.”

That job was at Civic Video in Arawa Street. It was picture perfect for someone who loved movies as much as Layla. Civic Video was where she found her place in the real world.

“I’d had six or seven years of alcohol, drugs and mental health battles. The great team there helped me come right.  We had so much fun. I was meeting such a variety of people.”

A short stint in Harvey Norman’s electrical department followed.

“I was their best and worst salesperson ever. I was too good at giving discounts; they were cutting into my commission. I just wanted people to walk out happy but my management wasn’t. I wasn’t interested in fighting over the sale of a washing machine. I didn’t have the teeth for it.”

Undaunted, Layla applied for a marketing assistant’s job at Peterson Portable Sawmills but dipped out – initially.

“My application was put in the discarded pile because I’d put a lower case ‘i’ in it when it should have been upper case.”

 That transgression was forgiven when the person who’d been selected for the job pulled out.     

Selling portable sawmills

Layla embraced the chance she’d been given and under the tutelage of the company’s marketing manager, Trudi Edmeades, she flourished.

“She’d run a red pen through all my mistakes. She was the best teacher I ever had. She really set me up to be successful in that industry.”

Within months Layla had been promoted to project manager, travelling the globe with her boss, demonstrating and selling portable mills.

“I knew this product was the best in the world and it came from Rotorua; that’s incredible.” 

After five years on she felt the need to settle down.

Empowered by the marketing and networking skills Peterson’s instilled in her, Layla opened a DVD store in Ngongotaha, developing the MovieTime brand.  The global recession eventually put paid to it. 

“It taught me every aspect of how hard it is owning a business. It was rewarding spiritually but I needed to get a full-time income.

“Some of the DVDs are still in town. Cafe Baraco has a pile of them and we have hundreds and hundreds on the wall at home.”

Marriage, miracle child

The “we” includes her husband Robert Crafar.

The couple met online during Layla’s time at Civic Video. He was working on his family’s dairy farms at Bennydale.

“We had our tastes in music in common and decided we were very similar in other ways.” When Robert returned to Reporoa in 2006 they set up home together.

“Then his family’s farming business was put into receivership. That put everyone through the wringer.

“We had to move out of the home we were living in and move into a rental.

“Robert worked on a lot of farms. His nickname’s Robot because of the amount of time he works and his ability with machines. He’s a genius.”

They’d been together seven years when Layla defied medical predictions and became pregnant.

“I’d been diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome and told the likelihood of conceiving was slim so our son Dexter is a bit of a miracle child.

“I’d never had the desire to be a parent before him. Now we are the Three Amigos and have a pretty crazy time together.”

Layla and Robert staged their Zombie-themed wedding in 2014. The word staged is deliberately chosen. The venue was the Casa Blanca theatre.

Their wedding dance was a take on Michael Jackson’s musical video, Thriller.

“The reason Thriller came about is because my husband is very shy, a traditional wedding dance would have been too much for him.

“One of the best moments of my life was when it all came together and having my mum walk me down the aisle.”

Zombie walks, museum horror 

Layla had introduced Rotorua to its first Zombie walk four years before she adopted the theme for her wedding.

What is it about Zombies (the undead) that grabs her fancy?

“I love horror.”

The walk wasn’t a smash hit with everyone. “It was a bit controversial because it was getting publicity about Zombies eating brains and I was donating the proceeds to the Rotorua Brain Injury Association. 

“They were very grateful but some critics thought I was associating people with brain injuries to behaving like Zombies.

“I had not prepared myself for that. They were so wrong. I ended up on TV and radio fielding a whole lot of abuse. I stayed strong. My intentions were good. It ended up being great fun and raised $15,000 over three years.”

The brain injury association also benefited from the funds raised by Nightmare in the Museum horror walks.

They were another Layla Robinson brainchild.   

“The museum at night is a very daunting building, people’s adrenalin is very high.

“They were terrified before they even entered through the gallows above the basement with its smoke machines. That was where they came into the world of twisted horror.”

Skating into roller derby

Since 2011 Layla’s organisational skills have centred on roller derby. There’s been a resurgence in the sport since the 2009 Drew Barrymore-directed hit movie Whip It. The plot revolves around a beauty queen who swaps the glitz of pageants for the rough and tumble of roller derby.

“When I saw it I thought ‘Yes, this is my window to get back into skating’. I asked a New Zealand Skate Shop for advice. They said someone else in Rotorua is interested. It was my now BFF [best friend forever] Kate Rasmussen.

“We put a post on Facebook to gauge interest. There was so much passion and enthusiasm from people who had skated when they were younger and people who’d never skated before.”

Roller derby in Rotorua steamed into action but before it did Layla, Kate and Layla’s husband Robert went to Kawerau for eight weeks to learn its complexities.

It’s a high-octane sport jam packed with intricate manoeuvres and cunning strategy.

“It’s a very physical, strong contact sport that requires a lot of body positioning, agility and strength. Because of this it’s at least eight months before you can play your first game.”

Layla scotches the common misconception that roller derby is the sole province of women who are of a bigger build. One of Layla’s co-coaches, Zara Matthews (aka Cankle Biter), is a former ballerina.

For Layla friendship is roller derby’s key component.

“Before roller derby I only had a few friends. I used to feel awkward when socialising. Now I have all my team mates and I can be a bit silly with them

“It’s so great being around other women who are strong and independent.

“It’s such a great sport for empowering women.”