May 11th, 2020From sport to army to hospitality: a great story

FROM international squash tournaments to the Israeli Army, to The Boathouse Restaurant, Claire Levine has a hell of a story.

To be fair, any story that involves “the valley of the crying” is set to be a good one.

Claire was born in South Africa and in the late 70s she moved to Israel, with her parents, before she had hit her teens.

“I was playing tennis, and then I was introduced to squash and I started playing that and I quickly became Israeli champion…but I will say, at that point in time, there weren’t a lot of squash players,” she said.

“When I was a junior they took us to quite a few European countries playing squash tournaments and from there I started playing professionally – but then I had to go into the army.”

In Israel, two years’ national military service in the defence forces is compulsory and so, when Claire was 18, she began her service.

“It was lucky for me, because I was classified as an ‘excellent sportsman’ during my army service I was able to occasionally travel overseas and play in squash tournaments.”

Claire was extremely fit by then and became a combat fitness instructor on an air force base with 6000 soldiers. “It was a mini-city and I’d make them all run around and they’d all have to listen to me.”

The course to become an army instructor is just as hard as it looks in the movies – being woken in the middle of the night, forced to run into the ocean, back up the sand, weapons and all. It’s literally enough to make a grown man cry. But not Claire.

“There was the ‘valley of the crying’, for our natural disaster training, it was a massive sandpit which we had to run through, and there’s just so much sand, and you’re wearing your full army uniform, and your boots, and because of the thick sand, they just sort of break down, crying.

“It was great, I really enjoyed it and I’m proud to say that I actually finished first in the natural disaster course. And doing the army service, it was a good thing.”

It wasn’t such a good thing for Claire’s squash career though – her fitness was at its peak, but there wasn’t a lot of time to play enough to keep up her skills.

“I got to 28th in the world, but I could have been a bit better if I’d applied myself a bit more, but I had fun.”

She came out of the army at just 20 years old, with the added bonus of already having travelled to every continent except South America to compete in squash tournaments, also having met friends who she still keeps in touch with to this day.

Nearly 25 years ago Claire moved to Australia, then 12 years ago, with partner Susanne Devine moved to Daylesford, loved it and it’s now home. She and Susanne ran The Farmers Arms Hotel for a few years and now they have The Boathouse Restaurant and she’s hoping it will be able to re-open as soon as the pandemic is over.

“At the moment we’re walking the dogs every morning, they’re so happy to have us home. I’m doing a lot of cooking and a lot of cleaning, and I’m looking forward to seeing everyone on the other side of this.”

“There was the ‘valley of the crying’, for our natural disaster training, it was a massive sandpit which we had to run through, and there’s just so much sand, and you’re wearing your full army uniform, and your boots, and because of the thick sand, they just sort of

break down, crying.”

Words: Kate Taylor | Images: Kyle Barnes (inset) & contributed

(This article is supported by the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas.)