Just as the old Sesame Street song enthuses, take a little walk through your neighbourhood and see who you meet. Chances are that this week you will come across some faces from the past. For bent, the mysterious artist responsible for many magical happenings around the city, from giant pigeons to miniature box cities, has been busy reuniting people of the past with their old neighbourhoods through a series of paste-ups entitled Wall Stories.

The images are of 10 young Wellingtonians who traded in their civilian lives and garb for a soldier’s uniform when they signed up to serve for ‘King and Country’ during the ‘Great War’. The soldiers are joined by a solitary nurse – the formidable Ida Willis, and Ernest Kilby, a rather handsome young man who resisted conscription. You can read their stories online, but better yet head out into the streets and take a walk in their footsteps back in time. You’ll find them and their amazing stories around Worser Bay, Island Bay, Karori, Mount Victoria, Oriental Bay, Newtown, Wadestown, Johnsonville, Otaki and throughout the Wellington CBD. Here are some paste-ups that our Te Papa folk and friends have spotted while out and about.

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Wall Stories is part of Lest We Forget a project curated by Wellington City Council in partnership with Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision (formerly the New Zealand Film Archive) and Te Papa. For more information on the full programme visit the WCC’s website here.