KISSED BY A CROC book review by Julie Davies

I’ve lived just down the road from Koorana Crocodile Farm for 16 years and have encountered John Lever many times but I’ve never gotten to know him. So I was pleased to learn that another neighbour, Jenny Lanyon, was co-writing his memoir. John is obviously a complex and driven character, who has lived an extraordinary life. He started with nothing and wrested a business inch by mozzie-ridden inch from unpromising tidal flats. What comes through loud and clear is that he’s a man of passion, in every sense, who will give anything a go to survive and prosper. He is ably assisted by his wife Lillian, whom he admires as a good sort who smacks her lips when she drinks a beer and can cut up a pig in a silk dress and pearls (Lillian, not the pig). His early experiences working with villagers in Papua-New Guinea are rivetting and bizarre in equal measure. I particularly appreciated his respect for the indigenous people and his active concern for their welfare. He has some absolutely wonderful anecdotes, such as the time he transported half a tonne of unanaesthetised croc in a plane, stuffed bound beneath their feet. I googled to see how big the Britten-Norman Islander plane was. It was a 10-seater – mind well and truly blown. Another time he and a colleague made an emergency landing on a remote airstrip in torrential rain and spent the night in a convent wearing nuns’ habits, while their clothes dried. I would have liked to see that. John ran for parliament twice unsuccessfully. I wonder if he knows just what a lucky escape that was. How could a man of such action and independent thought have coped in that hothouse of schemers and sycophants? As a farmer’s daughter and environmental scientist, I appreciate his intelligent and forward-thinking conservation philosophy of making an unpopular animal valuable alive. This is particularly important in poverty-stricken Third World regions but also applicable here. After all, we nearly wiped them out not so long ago. “Kissed by a Croc” is a fascinating read. Credit should be given to John’s biographer. Jenny is a strong-minded and forceful character herself, yet the only voice I heard was John’s. That takes no small measure of writing skill. I highly recommend this book. So why don’t you spend an afternoon with the Lever family and kiss a croc from the safe distance of your favourite reading chair.