The faraway land of the house and two cows

After the delays of Covid, The faraway land of the house and two cows book will finally be released in early August 2022.

And much to our delight, it will be launched in the old Cocoroc South School that once sat on the Metropolitan Sewerage Farm.

The school shut in 1963 when enrolments fell below the required number of eight. It was relocated from the sewerage farm into Werribee to become the Girl Guides Hall.

The old school is the oldest surviving building from the Metropolitan Sewerage Farm, apart from the heritage listed water tank that was once located in East Melbourne and moved to the Farm as a back up water supply. The water tank still sits on the sewerage farm, now known as the Western Treatment Plant.

It was far more than a school though. It was the focal point for the bottom-end township on the Farm, with many meetings, dances, parties and more in the school house. It was also a focus for the Education Department back in the day when it wanted to shut the school down because of odours.

… Schott has catalogued and distilled in warm, poetic, even microscopic fashion, a thriving, rambunctious troupe of labourers, stockmen, housewives, kids, cricketers, footballers, tennis players and bosses on a giant government farm in an environment peppered by everything from schoolyard snake bites to boozy romantic interludes … Noel Murphy

You can read more about that in the book, which you’re able to pre order now.

A captivating and beautifully written book … Jo Galea

Putting flesh back on the bones of ghosts of the past … Michael Young

Both brilliant and beautiful, a celebration of childhood and the power of a unique place that gives readers an intimate look at a piece of Melbourne’s history … Dr Lynette Hinings-Marshall