Rob Laurent recalls the days back in the 1950’s when he and his brothers experienced many a boyhood adventure on Melbourne Water’s Western Treatment Plant – Werribee Farm.

It is hard to imagine what life was like for a young Mum and Dad to raise a family on a sewerage treatment plant, but this they did – and the family flourished, and, amazingly, in the midst of what you would think would be the most disease-ridden environment on the planet – nobody ever got sick!

Robert was the middle child of three young boys who saw every day as an opportunity for adventure – like discovering all sorts of things for John, the eldest brother’s “museum” collection. John was the scientist in the family with an insatiable thirst for knowledge and a memory that could recall nearly everything that he read.

John wasn’t any “ordinary” child by any means, where other boys would be reading comics, John would plough his way through the volumes of an encyclopedia. John became the “guru” for his younger brother’s endless questions about the “why” and “how” about everything. He was the “professor” and also the instigator of many-a-plan to make some pocket money with his entrepreneurial spirit, boyhood charm, and endless schemes.

Whilst John was the more adventurous of the two, Robert loved to be with his father “working” with him on various projects in the shed. It was here that Robert picked up skills at a very early age that put him in good stead for the rest of his life. Being a handyman is not something everyone can do without some coaching from someone who has the knowledge and patience to be able to it pass on. Robert was very fortunate to have the best mentor that a young boy could ever wish for – his loving father.

Tony was the youngest of the three and although he was too young to keep up with the older boys on their bikes, he did have his “usefulness” in some of the adventures that they were planning – like squeezing into tiny spaces that were out-of-bounds, or sending him into a certain “spot” to see if there was anything “dangerous” there. Every day was an adventure in some way or another.

The post-war period was marked with financial hardship for many families struggling to make ends meet, but for the Laurent family, Gay keeping house and Bob working as a Field Officer was the kind of secure job that enabled the family to become established without the constant worry of being put off, or having to be constantly travelling in search of work. The environment was just something that they had to get used to, and after an initial settling in period, nobody noticed the smells anymore. It became, in the words of the author, an “idyllic” place to live.